Flip a Coin
by MissSarahSays
Summary: Blair/Carter. Hints B/C, B/N. Because even if they're Chuck and Blair, Blair and Chuck, it might just be Nate and Blair who are the same. And when it comes down to it, Chuck and Nate are two sides of the coin called Carter.
1. Flip a Coin

_**Disclaimer: I don't own Gossip Girl.**_

_**Thank you for reading. -- Sarah**_

When it happens, she's calmer than she could have ever thought possible.

Which isn't to say she's not sure where her heart rolled off to, after it fell from her chest to thud at her feet.

The letter burns her hand like it's on fire, but she thinks perhaps she should accept the pain, because she obviously deserves it, or said letter would have opened with something along the lines of _"It is with great pleasure …"_ as opposed to this foreign-looking and yet crystal-clear _"We regret to inform you …"_

So she holds onto it, but that doesn't mean she doesn't reach for the Belvedere when her throat dries up like she's inhaled sand and she starts to cough, which is obviously what leads to that inconvenient moisture clouding up her vision. She takes care of that quickly and neatly, and then gets a glass.

No weakness in hydrating, after all. And there is water in vodka. Somewhere.

XOXO

She's not surprised when two hours after she texts Serena with a 911, her phone remains silent.

She is mildly surprised, however, when after she finishes fighting off a completely unacceptable onslaught of threatening tears at the realization that she can't, she shouldn't, she couldn't, call Chuck … she has an overwhelming desire to call Nate.

Nate. Of all people.

But she thinks maybe Nate would get it. Because really, when it comes down to it, she and Nate are the same. Oh sure, she knows everyone thinks it's she and Chuck who are the same. She's pretty sure she's said so herself at some point.

But it's not true. Blair and Chuck, Chuck and Blair, they're not the same. Fire and fire, sure, but it's red and blue, and anyone who's looking can see the difference.

With all his talk of _"I'm Chuck Bass,"_ the devil himself is still standing even after the façade has crumbled, but it's Blair and Nate who lose all sense of being when their names are taken from them. It's Blair and Nate who've always known who they were supposed to be, one embracing it and one shunning it, but both aware, all the same.

And so she thinks Nate might get it, if she called. If.

She doesn't.

XOXO

She starts by removing the satin headband with its stupid, perfect bow, and tousling up her chestnut curls a bit. A glance in the mirror brings about a moment of panic, but it subsides when she digs the black and white lace minidress out of the back of her closet.

It's Elizabeth & James, which she never wears, and indecently short. As in, should she stumble even slightly or drop something, anyone paying attention is getting a show.

She hopes everyone is paying attention.

She skips stockings entirely and pairs the dress with 5-inch black suede Fendi booties that remind her of Georgina Sparks. She's not sure why she owns them but she's grateful all the same.

Finally, she faces herself in the mirror and scrubs at her deep red lips until they're still nearly the same color but she knows it's from the furious rubbing. She forces herself to look herself in the eye until the irritation goes down, and then she drowns her nude lips in clear gloss. She feels she looks oddly ill, or perhaps dead, like in a Studio 54 heroin chic kind of way, and it's strangely a welcome look.

XOXO

She goes to Tenjune because even though it's sort of a cliché at this point, they're all a bunch of clichés anyway and she wants to be seen even if the thought of talking to anyone she knows physically repulses her.

It has been 15 minutes but already two Belvedere martinis, dry, up, but who's counting anyway, when a shadow falls over her shoulder and he slides with all the ease of Nate and all the style of Chuck onto the barstool beside her.

"Waldorf," he greets, smooth like Chuck but smiling like Nate. "I hardly recognized you."

It's exactly what she wants to hear, and she stares flirtatiously up at him through a fringe of thick eyelashes and lets him buy her another drink. She thinks to herself that Carter Baizen has always been hot, in that older, distanced, unattainable kind of way, but now he seems absolutely _perfect_.

She lets him buy her another drink after that one and then she tells him so, about the perfect.

In a near-identical Chuck tone of voice, laced with amusement, mocking and also somehow sincerity, and with a straight-on blue-eyed Nate gaze, he smiles and breathes, "Perfect for what, Blair?"

XOXO

He lets her lead for a while, trailing soft kisses along her neck, her jaw, her collarbone, her wrists, and all the while she tears at his clothes, tossing his shirt with its newly missing buttons over her shoulder and grasping the back of his head forcefully.

His lips find hers gently, almost overly carefully and entirely too reminiscent of Nate the night after cotillion, and so she twists her fingers in his hair and is satisfied when she feels his teeth smash into hers before she begins exploring the caverns of his mouth with her tongue.

Eventually it's too desperate, too perfect, this kissing like they might consume each other, and she opens her eyes to focus on his face because otherwise in her mind she's back in the limo that night after Victrola and that just won't do, and eventually she thinks maybe kissing him on the mouth isn't such a good idea and so she buries her face in his neck and goes to work there.

He struggles with her tight dress as she yanks at his pants, not bothering to get them all the way off and then firmly demands he just rip the damn thing when the lace starts to catch as he's carefully pulling it over her head, so he cocks an amused eyebrow Nate-like, and yanks Chuck-like to obey her, and then he throws her down onto the bed and enters her, and she's hard-pressed to decide whom he's channeling now but it's working.

She thinks for a moment she should stop giving them all of the credit, since Carter is older, since Carter was mentor, and since Carter is, after all, the complete coin that Nate and Chuck make up the two sides of.

But then she thinks it would be best if she didn't start giving anyone any more credit or formulating any sort of admirations, and so she bites down on his shoulder and grips the bed as he finally gets the fucking show on the road.

XOXO

When they finish he draws her to him with one well-muscled arm and she's surprised enough not to protest, because though she likes cuddling it wasn't in the plan for what this night was supposed to be.

She remembers, though, as she tucks her head under his chin and slides her hands over the smooth planes of his chest, that she's not planning anymore, that things aren't supposed to be anything, because where has that ever gotten her, and plus, the way he strokes her hair is so nice. For a moment she returns the favor with a glance upward, eyelashes ghosting across his throat, one hand, feather-light, tracing his angular jaw and sharp cheekbone, until she's reminded of some other cheekbones, and until his muscular arms and smooth chest are too familiar, and she jerks hastily away.

He looks at her in confusion and perhaps something else, something more vulnerable, that she chooses to ignore, and she mumbles something about the restroom and disappears for a while. He falls asleep in the interim.

XOXO

Saturday morning she brunches with Serena at Sant Ambroeus and promises her the 911 was for nothing. She orders domed chocolate cake for dessert and crosses her legs a bit more frequently than is normal, reveling in their rather delicious soreness. She refrains from asking after Chuck or remembering how Carter's eyes were far more blue than she had ever noticed, because really, when she thinks of blue eyes it means Nate, and she doesn't want to think about him either.

XOXO

Farther uptown, Carter Baizen focuses sleepily on the empty space beside him in the bed in his suite at the Plaza. Rolling over, he blinks the day into focus and forces the vaguely rueful expression from his face. It's quickly replaced by an easy smile and a mischievious glint.


	2. Likesick

**Disclaimer: I don't own Gossip Girl.**

_Author's Note: I got reviews!__ So it seems 6 more people than I figured like Blair and Carter. Always appreciative of feedback, I will of course take the advice that I write more Blair/Carter. It's probably no secret that I sort of love Carter and sometimes get a little put out by the way he's consistently villainized. Anyway … this won't be a Chapter fic, per se, more a collection of one-shots that could end on their own but also somewhat fit together. Read them alone, or read them together, either way I hope you enjoy them, and thank you in advance for any feedback._

_-Sarah_

**Likesick.**

"B?" Serena peers warily around the Waldorf kitchen, which appears to have been broken into, or destructed, or ... _used_. Gooey eggshells line the stainless steel sink and the entire room appears to be coated in a thick layer of flour and cinnamon. Serena gives a little yelp as she nearly sets her studded Burberry into a pile of melting chocolate chips, and then calls for her best friend again.

"Hi S!" Blair pops up from where she's been bent down, head in the oven, and Serena offers a much louder yelp and takes two steps backward, hand over her pounding heart.

"Blair! You scared me to death! What ... what are you ... are you _baking_?" She demands, taking in her friend's sugar-dusted ponytail and some incriminating chocolate on her bottom lip. Blair regards her blankly.

"Yes. I said I would be baking today."

"Yeah, but I thought when you said _baking_, you meant, you know, _baking_."

"I did!"

"Yeah, but like _baking_! Like Dorota would be baking, and we'd be doing something else, where you wouldn't, you know, get dirty."

"I'm not dirty," Blair shrugs. "I'm just … a very interactive baker."

"Are you wearing jeans?"

Blair looks down at the denim peeking from beneath her frilly red gingham apron and laughs lightly. "Oh, yeah, I wasn't, but I seem to drop a lot of things while baking and I kept getting my knees sticky crawling around on the floor, so - what?" she demands.

Serena shakes her head, holding up her hands in mock-surrender while cocking an amused eyebrow. "Nothing. What are we baking?"

XOXO

"I could call the fire department if you'd like," Carter offers as he walks into the Waldorf kitchen, coming to a halt as his eyes fall on Blair and Serena, cross-legged on the floor, hair white with flour, giggling hysterically and eating from a bag of chocolate chips as a pan full of indeterminable charcoal-colored lumps sits forgotten on the counter.

There's an increasingly familiar tug somewhere in his chest when he looks at Blair, her head thrown back and her dark eyes tearing, and a momentary sense of complete insecurity overwhelms him as he contemplates how to greet her here, now, in front of Serena.

This thing with him and Blair, it's sort of developed without any sort of discussion or plan, which he thinks is a bit out of character for her but pretty par for the course on his part.

The way he's somehow desperate of late to have some sort of discussion about the whole thing, though, while she just seems to laugh a lot more than he's ever remembered her doing and smile while she kisses him, is entirely foreign to him and increasingly leads to obnoxious things like sweating palms and his heart pounding in his ears.

The sense of insecurity grows as he realizes he's now spent the better part of five and a half seconds standing there silently contemplating this all, with a stupid lovesick -no, no, not love ... _likesick_, perhaps, because Carter Baizen isn't sure he loves just yet - grin lighting up his features while he looks at her. Serena smiles quizzically at him, and as he opens his mouth to speak without having a clue what to say, Blair gets to her feet and saves him.

"Hi," she breathes cheerily, and her arms go around his neck, and right there in the destroyed Waldorf kitchen, her legs encased in denim and her hair and face a mess of sugar, with Serena sitting on the floor and staring up at them, Blair Waldorf kisses Carter Baizen without hesitation or abandon, without regard for etiquette, and without a hint of self-consciousness.

He tastes cinnamon and chocolate on her lips and feels his pulse return to normal. She cuddles into the crook of his neck where she seems to fit so easily, and he smiles and says hi back with his lips against her temple.

His eyes catch Serena's, and they smile softly at each other, something like understanding crossed with pride emanating from them both, and he remembers lusting for her, once, so long ago. He thinks it might have been more than lust, or at least he might have thought so at the time, but with Blair's little hand stroking the back of his neck, he can't for the life of him remember why.

XOXO

"Are you ready?" Blair calls out to him from the bathroom.

He's lying on her bed, arms behind his head and legs crossed at the ankles, and he rolls his eyes.

"I've been ready for 45 minutes," he complains.

"Well, no one said you couldn't have joined me in the shower ..." she taunts back, and her laughter rings out as he sputters over that one for a moment. "So you're sure you're ready?"

"Blair, if you don't get out here I'm coming in and spoiling this 'surprise,'" he declares firmly, and cocks his head as the doorknob twists.

"You're no fun, Carter," she pouts, and his eyes widen as she struts toward him, still damp from her shower, her dark locks uncombed and spilling in tangles over her shoulders, creating wet, clinging patches on her apron, which she is now wearing with a pair of black Louboutin stilettos, cherry-red lip gloss, and nothing else.

"Oh now you know that's not the case," he replies, and she squeals with laughter as he launches himself off the bed and lifts her off the ground. "I'm the most fun you've ever had."

She shoves him in the chest with a devilish little smile and he willingly collapses back onto the bed.

"You know what?" she asks, her conversational tone contrasting with the way she's hastily sliding his t-shirt up over his head.

He shakes his head and reaches up to cup her cheek, drawing her face to his for a lengthy kiss and freezing her where she straddles him before asking, "What?"

She places her hand over his against his cheek and regards him seriously, her playful demeanor paused as her gaze burns into his.

"I like you," she informs him, and the annoying little tug in his chest feels different - warmer, and spreading, like morphine.

"I like you too," he tells her, and her smile lights up her entire face.

They watch each other for a moment, unsure of whether they're supposed to expand upon their revelations or just get to the sex part, and then his stomach growling beneath her other hand interrupts them. They look down in unison and he groans, and her eyes sparkle playfully.

"Hungry? I could bake somethi--"

"I think I'll be okay," he cuts her off when he presses his lips against hers, and she laughs again as his hand snakes around behind her and her apron falls to the ground.


	3. Asshole

Disclaimer: I don't own Gossip Girl.

_Slightly different style on this one. More dialogue, fewer time breaks._

_Thank you for reading. –Sarah_

**Asshole.**

Carter smiles to himself when he hears the ding of the elevator followed by the unmistakable sound of three-inch heels clacking purposefully across the floor.

"Hi honey, how was your day?" he greets her teasingly, eyes trained on the page in front of him. Blair remains silent, and he glances up to note she's angry – she's violently shaking rain droplets from her glossy curls and her cheeks are flaming. She meets his eyes and he thinks if he didn't know her she'd have just frozen his blood in his veins.

"Uh-oh," he sighs, setting down his book. "What's wrong? The rain ruin your Manolos?"

She scowls briefly, intensely, and then closes her eyes for a moment as if to give herself pause to let that one go, and then she fairly spits: "What's this about you setting Nate up at a poker game?"

He gapes at her incredulously, and knows the second they leave his lips that the words "What, did Pretty Princess Archibald cry to you about _that_?!" were perhaps not the best opening lines of defense.

"No," she retorts, dropping her red patent Marc Jacobs purse, flustered, and then picking it up again. "Not that it matters, but I heard it from Vanessa, who heard it from Serena, who heard it from Chuck …"

"_Seriously?_"

"Seriously _what_?"

"Who the hell is Vanessa? And could you sound anymore like you're in high school right now?"

"She's – why does it even matter who she is? She's no one. I don't even normally speak to her, but today I accidentally did, and what do I hear? That I'm sleeping with an asshole. AND I _AM_ IN HIGH SCHOOL!"

His eyes blaze to match hers at this point. "Well isn't sleeping with assholes your specialty? Why so high and mighty this time?"

"How _dare_ you?" she sputters. "Don't make this about me. Why did you do it?"

"Blair, it was more than a year ago …"

"WHY?!"

"I NEEDED THE MONEY!"

She laughs. "Oh yeah, that's rich, Carter."

"It's true!"

"You're _Carter Baizen_."

"Off-the-map, remember? Disowned my parents, disowned _by_ my parents?"

"Oh come on," she snorts. "Stop talking to me like I'm stupid. Everyone knows the only unglamorous bit about being a trustafarian is the personal choice not to shower in the five-star hotels you shack up in while 'finding yourself' in every exotic locale on the map."

"It was only the interest off my trust," he offers weakly. "I don't come into it in full until I'm 25…"

She shakes her head vehemently, disgusted, and when she speaks again her voice is soft, disappointed, and he hates what it does to his insides. "How could you? Nate looked up to you. He was your friend."

He looks away at this, clenching his jaw, and when he speaks again his tone is quiet to match hers. "Look, I know. I felt – I _feel_ bad about it. I tried to apologize, but he wasn't hearing it…"

"Why would he?" she laughs. "God. Whatever, Carter. It's a good thing he had Chuck," she murmurs, almost as an afterthought to herself, but he catches it.

"Right, _Bass_, what a goddamn hero," he retorts, voice laced with sarcasm, and she rolls her eyes.

"Well, compared to present company?" she offers with a patronizing smirk, eyebrows raised. "From what I hear you didn't complain when he covered your ass too, letting you pay off those guys with his Piaget, which you _stole_ from him after showing up at a party _he didn't even invite you to_!"

"It was the Lost Weekend! IT'S MY PARTY! I INVENTED IT!" He explodes, and her demeanor remains sickeningly sweet and calm, to his dismay.

"Now who's acting like he's in high school?" she prompts, her perfect pouty lips curving up into a triumphant smirk.

"Maybe you should be with someone more _upstanding_ and _grown up_, then, like _Chuck Bass_," he growls, and her smile falls, eyes hardening.

"Maybe I should just go," she replies, and she sets her jaw and catches her breath for a moment as he crosses the distance between them to stand directly before her, close enough that she can feel his breath on her face when he looks down to meet her eyes.

"I'll get the elevator for you."

XOXO

He's not sure how much time has passed when he hears the elevator again, and the clacking, slower, almost hesitant this time, he just knows that it's dark outside his window now and he lost all interest in his book and has been lying on his bed forcing things he doesn't want to think about from his mind ever since she left.

She stands before him now, her hair pulled back, and he regards her silently. She opens her mouth twice and takes a half step forward before retreating, and then finally appears to decide to just go for it, and not only crosses to the side of the bed where he's lounging, but climbs on and settles herself in her usual nook against his left side.

He wraps his arm around her without hesitation.

"I outed Serena for a drug problem last year," she confides in one breath. "In front of every single Ivy rep, the top 3 percent of Constance and St. Judes, and every adult in our social circle."

He chuckles, and quietly tells her he'd heard about that one.

"And she's my best friend," she adds, and he nods. "I'm sorry I called you an asshole."

He looks at her, finally, and gives her a little smile. "I kind of am one, though?"

She laughs and rests her head against his shoulder. "I didn't even really apologize to S for that," she admits.

"Hm," he considers this. "I guess you might be kind of an asshole too."

Her laughter rings out louder and the iciness that's been sitting in his stomach since they fought starts to thaw a little.

"I've been worried lately," she says softly, and he looks at her questioningly. "Worried about how we're growing apart – me, S, Nate … Chuck. Sometimes I feel like we're looking at each other like we're just … people we once knew, that we don't even understand anymore."

"Growing up," he offers. "It happens kind of fast, and … intensely, in our circles."

She looks at him with those wide, dark eyes, her face so pleading and doll-like. "How do I make it stop? The growing apart part of … growing up?"

He shakes his head apologetically and makes a face that's at once rueful and self-deprecating. "Sorry, I can't really help you there," he admits with a humorless little laugh. "I kind of got to avoid that part by, you know … not having friends."

Her face falls so sadly for him, and he can feel the pity practically roll off of her and he instantly regrets his words and tries uselessly to reclaim them. "No, Blair, forget – I wasn't trying – I didn't mean … it's no big deal. I had – have – had … friends. People, around, anyway. Just not like what you're talking about …" her eyes still appear to be verging on brimming for his plight, and so he offers a weak, "It's always been better that way, for me. For the way I … live."

She shakes her head, and then rests it back against his shoulder. "I don't think that's true."

He drops his head briefly back against his pillows, staring up at the ceiling, and then turns so that his chin sits atop her hair. "You might be right."

She sits up then, suddenly serious, and looks him in the eye. "I don't think you're too much of an asshole to have friends," she announces.

He thinks it's at once the most ridiculous and the nicest thing anyone's ever said to him, and he's not sure if he should laugh, cry or kiss her, so instead he just says, "Thank you."

"You're welcome," she tells him, crawling forward and wrapping her arms around his neck. He pulls her onto his lap and just holds her there for a minute.

"Serena had a drug problem?" He wonders, finally, and she freezes against him.

"No," she sighs after a beat. "I made it up."

He laughs. "Asshole."

"Right back at ya, friend."


	4. Unofficial

_Disclaimer: I don't own Gossip Girl._

_Thank you for reading._

_--Sarah_

**Unofficial.**

It's been four weeks when Carter Baizen begins to wonder if perhaps he and Blair Waldorf are a couple, just without having the official couple talk to, well, _officiate_ the whole thing.

If there is such a thing as an official couple talk, really, because, hell, he's never been half of a couple, so like he'd know.

But it does feel like it, when he's lying on his belly on her bed, diligently pretending to read up on investments and tuning out the crappy reality tv she's taken to watching of late, leaving her extensive collection of romantic classics and fairytales dormant on a shelf for the time being.

She absently reaches down beside her to rub his back, finding bare skin where his t-shirt has hitched up and so slipping her hand beneath the material to run her fingers from his waist up and over his shoulders, again and again in a circular motion, until he thinks he might die it's so amazing.

He steals a glance up at her and she's still trained on the television, either oblivious to the heaven the rhythm of her hand is making for him or just well enough aware that she doesn't need to look.

His eyes grow heavy after a while and he closes his book and shifts to rest his head in her lap. She doesn't miss a beat, running her hand once more along the side of his rib cage and then smoothing his t-shirt back down before dropping her hand gently to tangle it in his hair.

As he falls asleep, he thinks for sure this moment is quite couple-y of them, what with the lack of sex and utter sense of comfort, and, oddly, he thinks it might be something he could get on board with.

XOXO

Blair takes to wearing red lip gloss again, the shiniest and brightest she owns, more cherry than ruby, but continues to forgo headbands and begins favoring only black patterned stockings. Iz, Penelope and Hazel are briefly perplexed but recover admirably and send Nelly Yuki on an emergency Wolford errand and toss their satin bows and glittering jeweled beads into their lockers.

Blair manages a smile that crosses condescension with the vaguest hint of genuine gratitude when Jenny Humphrey compliments her on the new look.

She's less gracious when Chuck Bass smarms by moments later and points out that her new style is accentuated by a certain glow.

"It's one _very recognizable_ to me," he confides, smirking between the two girls and hoping for all the world that the insane panicked thudding of his heart isn't audible to anyone else.

Blair hisses something exasperated and unintelligible, but also, as neither Chuck nor Jenny fails to pick up on, nowhere near her usual standard of biting iciness.

She stalks away before she can catch the vaguely desperate look in Chuck's rich chestnut eyes.

XOXO

Serena is more polite.

After countless failed attempts at getting Blair to let her in on what's got her so aloof yet cheerful, so unaffected by all the forces that used to rule her existence, over lunch at the Palace one Saturday she finally turns the subject to Carter herself, with a glint in her eye and that blinding Serena smile.

She's shaken when Blair's forkful of baby spinach freezes halfway to her mouth.

"B? I … sorry, I thought you'd want to talk about him?" she asks, bewildered.

Blair recovers in an instant, dropping the fork back to her plate with a shrug and beckoning their waiter for another bottle of wine.

"Sure, but what's to talk about?" she asks easily. "You know all there is to know. Carter. Hot. Rich. Appropriate. Carrying around far less baggage than I'm used to having to deal with. I'm having a great time."

She's not sure why all of a sudden the idea of considering aloud any actual feelings on the subject of the boy has got her ready to vomit raspberry vinaigrette, or why a wave of guilt hits her like a ton of bricks when she hints out loud at the fact that if you consider Carter in the simplest of ways, he might be cherry picking the best of Chuck and Nate, and she smiles in a way that feels maniacal and pushes her plate away.

Serena nods slowly. "That's great, B. I just thought …"

"You thought what?"

Serena thinks she just thought that maybe she'd seen a softness in Carter's eyes and heard something deeper beneath Blair's carefree giggling of late.

"I just thought … maybe it was more than just a great time?" She offers cautiously.

Blair takes a sip of Sauvignon Blanc and regards her evenly, contemplating, and then asks after her new Balenciaga.

"I feel like it'd be difficult to coordinate," she declares, and her tone lets Serena know the subject has officially been changed.

XOXO

Surprisingly, it's Nate who finds it hardest to let the subject drop, or at least forcibly make it become invisible.

Unsurprisingly, he still has no fucking clue how to have a real conversation with the girl who loved him for more than a decade, and so he makes the rounds unsuccessfully until he finds himself in Chuck's suite, his best friend regarding him with an expression that's mostly eyebrows and a half smile, conveying amusement and something else that Nate can't pinpoint because he's had this obnoxious headache for weeks now and it's interfering with his perception skills.

"Are you sleeping with Blair again?" he demands without formalities, and Chuck laughs outright, stretching leonine and getting up to make his way to the bar.

"Now, now, Nathaniel," he replies, taking his time with the bottle of Scotch. "Where would you get such an idea?"

Nate drops his head back along the couch cushions and regards the ceiling for time enough that Chuck has crossed the room and stands before him offering a rocks glass when he meets his eyes.

"I don't know," he offers. "Lighter, happier, less Blair?"

Chuck's smile could pass for a grimace as he recognizes the description, and he honestly murmurs, "wish I could take the credit this time" before he can catch himself. When he looks up, Nate's gaze is hard, navy steel.

"I wish you could too, honestly," he replies. "You know she's seeing Carter."

"Baizen." It's not a question, as Chuck nods in his mutual disgust. _Gossip Girl_ has caught the two of them together time enough over the past month, and though the photos have been blurred and the confirmation spotty, it's apparent in their smiles and linked hands that it's more than a one-time thing.

"You know, you really fucked up," Nate points out carelessly, and Chuck stares at him with a mixture of incredulousness, amusement and … is that _pain_? … and Nate continues with a more meek, "I just mean … if you had known what you had …"

"I've been a _little_ preoccupied," Chuck snaps obviously and pointedly when Nate trails off. "And I'll refrain, Nathaniel, from pointing out exactly how much could have been avoided had _you_ just know what _you_ had for, oh, more than half your life."

They glower, sipping in silence, for several minutes, and Nate finally offers an apology that Chuck immediately brushes aside.

"So … is that it then?" Nate asks, and there's a vulnerability, something like fear, evident when Chuck looks at him. "We just let her go?"

"Maybe," Chuck muses, "she's better off?"

"With _Carter_?" Nate spits, and they lock eyes.

Chuck shrugs as if dismissively, but something rages inside of him, and he sees it reflected in a feverish flush across Nate's cheekbones.

XOXO

"You want to go sailing?" Carter asks out of nowhere, late-ish on a Thursday night, and Blair shifts in the darkness to seek out the tell-tale sheen of his eyes.

"Sailing?" she repeats, vaguely dumbstruck. "It's the end of _March_."

"Mmm-hmm," Carter confirms, his lips finding her neck and grazing gently. "Frostbiting," he says. "My dad loves it. He just had his J-24 refinished and is dying to ruin the paint job in Nantucket Sound."

She's quiet for a moment, considering how sailing for her up until this point has meant perching delicately on the bow of something 32 feet or longer in her bikini while Nate slugged Coronas and glided the boat easily through minimal waves in Southampton in August. _Frostbiting_, _March_ and _Nantucket Sound_ all ring threateningly foreign in her ears, but then Carter's hand finds the waistband of the threadbare flannel pants she's taken to sleeping in during this final half of winter and she wonders, as he traces random patterns on her skin, what's so great about the familiar anyway.

"Okay," she says, and his fingers freeze, splayed out over her stomach, and she can feel him smile against her cheek.

"Okay?" he repeats, and she turns her lips to his.

"Yes. I could go … frostbiting."

"This means you'll be meeting my parents," he tells her quietly, after a few minutes of the careful, savory kissing she's yet to tell him he's exceptionally proficient at, and she pulls her head back.

"I already know your parents," she informs him with a less than subtle hint of obviousness in her voice, and he draws her back to him with a hand tangled in her curls.

"I know," he replies. "But you'll be meeting them as like … you know …"

"Your friend?" she offers after a beat, well aware that it's not what he meant but also desperate to convince him that it was, all the while not knowing why.

He's quiet for a long moment before offering affirmation to her statement, and she feels a chill as he turns over. She pushes the vague nagging from her mind when he doesn't flinch as she slips an arm around his waist, and she pulls herself flush against his back and lies in silence until his breathing becomes steady and lulls her to sleep.


	5. Not Not a Thing

_Disclaimer: I don't own Gossip Girl._

_Thank you for the lovely reviews I've received on this series – I have one of the most grown up of grown up day jobs possible, and your feedback really makes my mornings before a long day! Also, to __**mystripedskirt**__: I hope you do continue to write Carter/Blair! I would love to read some, and while I''m sure a bit might be on the horizon after next Monday, I'm a little apprehensive as to what it will be like…_

_Thank you for reading. --Sarah_

**Not Not A Thing**.

Nate invites Blair for coffee on a Friday after school and she only stops to consider that it's kind of a random event of late after she immediately accepts and tosses off a quick text to Carter letting him know he'll need to push their dinner reservation at Nero back and she's sitting across from her ex and delicately sipping an Americano.

He's all bright eyes, easy smiles and lacking conversation skills as usual.

He _is_ impeccably polite with their waiter, though, she notes with a hidden smile. Nate always has known better how to interact with adults and society than with those allegedly nearest and dearest to his heart.

He asks after Carter before wondering how she herself is doing, and she narrows her eyes and offers a clipped, "he's fine" before demanding the same of Vanessa.

"She's great," he smiles. "I think I've almost convinced her to apply for January admission at the NYU film school."

"How charming," Blair replies dryly, and he laughs.

"Well I think it would be good for us, both in school together, in the city…" he trails off pointedly, and she takes the bait, raising an eyebrow.

Something insane like an implosion happens in her chest when he hands her a letter – _"Dear Mr. Archibald, we it is with great pleasure that we welcome you …"_

"I know it's not USC like I always thought I wanted, but it's not Dartmouth either, right?" Nate's rambling. "And, Blair … I miss you. I miss us – I mean, not _us_, us … but, knowing you … and with me at Columbia and you in New Haven …" he pauses as he takes in her downcast eyes and trembling hands. "Blair? Are you alright?"

She looks up and like the gentlemen he's always been he's out of his seat and at her side in an instant as she blinks furiously and laughs against the tears blurring her vision.

"Of course I'm alright," she swats at him. "I'm just … proud of you, Archibald." It's a half-truth anyway. Or perhaps a half of a half.

He regards her dubiously and asks if she's sure, and she simultaneously laughs and glares up at the heavens when her tear ducts betray her again and she tilts her head all the way back until she's sure the moisture has seeped back in to where it belongs.

"I'm sure," she tells him, but she doesn't put up a fight when he nods slowly but with a completely unconvinced expression, like, since when did Nate become all about perception, and then carefully puts an arm around her. She rests against his chest like she's never left, and he drops his chin on top of her head.

XOXO

She cuts Carter off mid-hello outside the restaurant when she attacks his lips with hers, and before he can come all the way up for air she's yanking him into a cab and murmuring something against his jawline about having had a big lunch.

She manages to get his shirt untucked and is struggling with his belt when he gently grabs both of her hands with one of his and laughs against her cheek.

"Blair," he inclines his head discreetly. "We have an audience."

The cab driver quickly averts his eyes and then immediately grins back into the rearview when Blair shifts to straddle Carter's lap. "I _love_ an audience."

"Oh yeah?" he smirks, leaning back as she wraps her arms around his neck and resumes kissing him with vigor, but to her chagrin he carefully grasps her shoulders and holds her at bay when she attempts to remove any articles of his clothing. "Seriously, Blair, what's gotten into you?"

"Come on Carter, I need this," she pleads in exasperation, and for some reason the way he raises his eyebrows infuriates her. "Oh, _what_? _What_, Carter? Why the sudden chivalry? I'm sure you've ever needed so much as an invitation before."

He stares at her incredulously as she flings herself off of him and glares out the window, arms crossed against her chest. He reaches for her, but the car stops and she's out the door. "I want to go home, _now_," she informs him, stalking down the sidewalk in search of a new cab before he's even paid the driver of the one they'd just been in.

"Blair!" he hurries after her, and halts abruptly when she suddenly whirls around to face him, her porcelain face a mess of tears. "Blair …"

She collapses against him, shuddering, and he holds her with a mixture of bewilderment and terror as she shakes in his arms, and he whispers meaningless, comforting words into her curls, and finally she's done, turning away with a wry, watery smile.

"Sorry," she offers a little hoarsely, and he reaches for her again, a little surprised at the feeling of emptiness that takes over when she leaves his arms.

"It's okay," he assures her. "Do you want to tell me what's wrong?"

"I didn't get into Yale," she mumbles against his chest, and he feels a wave of relief wash over him.

"Oh," he breathes. "Is that all?"

Oops.

She recoils, taking three steps back and her glare is frightening as he sputters uselessly.

"_Is that all_?" she demands, voice starting low and growing higher by the word. "What do you mean, _is that all_? It's my _whole entire future_! Isn't that enough?"

"Blair, I didn't mean – I just thought it was something really bad …" he attempts. "_Blair_!"

She's already hailed the cab and her tears have completely dried up with rage. "It _is_, Carter. But I couldn't expect _you_ to understand. Have fun on your little sailing trip."

XOXO

She's watching _Funny Face_, on the heels of _Sabrina_, early Sunday morning after a sleepless Saturday night when Carter appears in her bedroom doorway.

She leaps to her feet like a cat, muttering something about hiring help that doesn't demand the Day of Rest off, and furiously tugging at her matted bedhead.

"You look beautiful," he tells her quietly, and she stares at the floor.

He crosses the room to stand before her and they listen to each other breathing for a few moments, before both erupting in apologies simultaneously and then laughing.

She reaches up to touch his cheek, slight sun, or perhaps wind-burnt. "You're back early," she notes, and he shrugs.

"I really only wanted to go so I could see Blair Waldorf with ocean hair in a drysuit," he admits, and she giggles.

"A whatsuit?"

He smiles, and tucks her hair behind her ear. "I didn't mean Yale wasn't a big deal," he tells her quietly. "I know how important it was to you. I was just … worried it could be something more serious – I've never seen you fall apart like that."

She nods, blushing slightly. "I guess I did go a little overboard."

He shakes his head. "No. It was honest." She stares up at him with huge eyes, and he adds, "We can figure out what to do now … together. If you want."

"I had coffee with Nate," she blurts. "It's …he's…it's what got me going, on the whole thing. I've know about Yale for a while."

She thinks it's best for everyone if she doesn't mention their first time together was actually something of a direct product of the whole tragedy.

"Something just snapped, though. When I was … with Nate."

Carter winces slightly and his jaw works in a way that looks a little painful, but he smiles down at her and shrugs. "Hey, it's none of my business though, right?"

She furrows her eyebrows, which he thinks to himself are the most perfect of eyebrows, and he rambles on. "I mean, you're friends. I would never tell you … well, I mean, if we were … which we're not … but I just mean, I get it, that Nate's kind of a big deal to you." He sighs. "And probably Chuck, too."

She laughs at this, and he meets her eyes with a sheepish kind of smile but something deeper in his clear eyes, and she feels something tugging inside of her as he touches her cheek and very seriously apologizes again.

She can't help but consider how, despite all the times he'd wronged her, Nate had never apologized for anything. Or how every time Chuck had, it had only been to immediately be followed by more, greater disappointment.

She can't help but notice, either, that Carter touches her face so carefully and so much, like he's trying to memorize it, and it's like nothing she's ever felt before when he runs his thumb across her cheekbone. And so maybe there are parts of him that are only him, and that are better than anything she's know.

"Do you want …" she begins, haltingly, taking a step forward. He looks at her curiously. "I mean, what would you think about us _not_ being not … a thing. What if…" she stops again, considering her words, and looks up to see he's grinning.

"Yeah, I think that'd be good," he tells her. "If we were …not not a thing."

She smiles, sweetly, relieved, but a wicked glint appears in her eyes and she grabs him by his shirt and drags him toward her bed.

"Oh, what's this?" he demands, laughing, between kisses, as his gaze falls on the television screen. "_Funny Face_? Are you back to watching quality chick tv at least?"

"I've got the latest _City_ saved On Demand," she replies, and he groans and falls back against the pillows. "So," she adds, climbing into his lap to lie against him. "Think your dad'll be up for sailing again soon? I'm sorry I missed it."

He smiles softly and wraps an arm around her back, fingers playing lightly on her shoulder. "Sure," he says. "We can wait until it's warmer if you want."

She pulls back, her eyes offering a challenge. "Oh, no. I want _frostbiting_, Baizen. Blair Waldorf can rock a … whateversuit."


	6. Breakdown

_**Disclaimer: I don't own Gossip Girl.**_

_Thank you for reading, and again for all the nice (and constructive!) feedback. To __**.x**__: I'm fairly certain that "Your Carter is the most intriguing person I've ever read" was simultaneously the funniest and greatest thing anyone said to me all day. --Sarah_

**Breakdown.**

Serena gets notice of her acceptance to the Tisch school on a Friday afternoon, and Blair loses her appetite and pushes her grapes in Penelope's direction and hopes her grimace looks like a genuine, happy smile.

At least she's not crying, this time, like she did with Nate.

"B, we've got to go out and celebrate tonight!" Serena's gushing, and Blair feels like she's under water. "Like old times, please? It's finally starting to hit me – we're _graduating_!"

Yes, good call on the discontinuance of lunch. Blair thinks grapes would be kind of uncomfortable if they were coming up with whatever she feels rising in her throat.

She nods with wide eyes at Serena's babbling about bittersweet and memories and here's to their futures and taking shots (her ears perk up at least vaguely at that part), and wonders when her head is going to clear enough for her to figure out what exactly the fuck she's supposed to do, because this charade is getting exhausting, and also, she's pretty sure she's having a heart attack 24/7.

She knows she's too young for that, but then again, maybe that's only in body at this point, her alleged youth.

XOXO

Carter goes for a run, because Blair's been in his head lately and while it's been confirmed that they are in mutual like and not not a thing at this point, it's still not quite comfortable, this overwhelming crowding of his thoughts.

He thinks to himself he's Carter Baizen and he can handle the terrifying emptiness that sometimes seems to swallow up the light in her mahogany eyes and all the obnoxious feelings it (and she, if he's being honest, which, really, he thinks, contrary to popular belief, he generally is) inspires in him.

He thinks to himself that he really wasn't signing up for all of that when he decided on a whim to swing by her penthouse a few nights after they, for lack of a better word, reacquainted and she showed him how little he knew her.

He thinks to himself that now it's too late, though, because he wouldn't take an out if offered one, and he doesn't want one anyway, because just the thought of walking away plows all the other thoughts over like feathers and weighs on his heart as well as his brain, and he figures he'd better figure out a way to fill the emptiness because if it consumes her, he's toast too, at this point.

He nearly takes out two senior citizens and a double-wide stroller manned by a blonde nanny and thinks maybe he's going to have to clear his head in private for fear of a personal injury suit, and tries to focus on not running into anyone for the next two miles.

XOXO

Serena insists on Tenjune despite Blair's insistence that Tenjune didn't even _exist_ during the "old times" they're supposedly commemorating, but as it goes, Serena gets what Serena wants, and Blair finds herself stepping into black ankle boots and scrutinizing herself in the mirror.

Alice + Olivia this time, a purple sheath dress with a ruffle at the bottom, and she feels much more herself than she did in the long-since torn and never repaired lace Elizabeth & James, adding black tights and her new cherry red lip gloss.

She still doesn't bother with a headband, and when she enters the club and immediately feels completely out of sorts she decides to blame that for a while. That, and the memory of her behavior the last time she was here.

Of course, her behavior the last time she was here is what led to the one thing – one person - in her life that seems of late to calm her constantly racing heart and stop the way her pulse thuds so hard in her wrists that she's sure her arms must be shaking, and so she wonders, as she checks the time, what was so wrong about being Un-Blair that night that's got her all worked up now?

"S, I can only stay for a little while," she reminds her best friend, who's whirling about her in a flurry of golden hair and Tory Burch sequins. "I have plans with…" she trails off, because Serena's not paying attention, _not_ because it's still sort of strange and almost too new to her that Blair Waldorf is now only secure when she's in the presence of Carter Baizen.

She's fine with the way things have changed. So fine she doesn't even need to talk about things. Or even _think_ about them, she decides, and marches to the bar.

XOXO

Nate groans, cutting off his own laughter as he looks away from Vanessa and sees Carter heading down the street in their direction.

"Baizen," he affirms more than greets, and Carter smiles easily.

"Nate. Good to see you," he offers, and Vanessa is confused as her boyfriend's arm stiffens in hers.

"Yeah," Nate replies. "I'd say the same, but, I try not to lie."

"Nate!" Vanessa admonishes, aghast, looking between the two, and Carter laughs and raises his palms in defeat, stepping aside.

"Don't let me keep you then." His tone is smooth and he tosses Vanessa a little wink that sets Nate's blood boiling. "Enjoy your evening."

"Meeting Blair?" Nate demands because he can't help it, and Carter pauses, and turns back around slowly.

"As a matter of fact-" Carter begins, but his phone buzzing interrupts him and he excuses himself.

Somewhere amidst a sea of consonants he deciphers Blair's intended cancellation of their plans. He smiles at the apparent intoxication, because he can always get behind that, but it doesn't reach his eyes, so he forces it broader and looks back up.

"As a matter of fact, no," he admits, but sets his jaw when Nate cocks an eyebrow in a way that seems absurdly triumphant considering it's pretty obvious he's not with Blair tonight either.

"We're going sailing next week. Nantucket," Carter adds, and he knows it's probably technically unnecessary but he thinks Nate Archibald's always kind of been a little shit of a kid, always being handed whatever he wanted, much like himself he'll admit, but never bothering to appreciate it.

"Blair hates sailing," Nate declares flatly. "And it's _cold_."

"I don't know," Carter replies, faux-pensively. "It seems to me that the things Blair likes and doesn't like seem to be evolving a little." He offers a little half-salute and turns on his way.

Nate nearly knocks Vanessa over in his haste to start storming in the opposite direction, and she yanks his arm right back and demands to know his deal.

"_That guy_," he offers unhelpfully. "I just can't stand him."

"He seemed friendly enough," Vanessa replies, and her eyes widen when he practically glares at her. "Not that you remembered your manners enough to introduce us or anything …"

"Can you just trust me on this one? I _hate_ him," Nate insists flatly, and she looks away with exaggerated wide eyes.

"Oooo-kay."

XOXO

"S … S, where's the Palace … what? S! You had him let us off on the wrong block!" Blair squeals in a fit of giggles as she turns in two circles and drops her clutch looking for Serena.

Serena stumbles beside her, also laughing delightedly at their accidental 20-foot detour, and hauls Blair across the street.

"My, my," Chuck shakes his head as he slides into the elevator behind them. "And where have you ladies been this evening?"

"Prob-b-ah! Probably," Serena giggles, amazed by her newfound hiccups. "Nowhere that would impress _the_ Chuck Bass."

"Yeah, where have _you_ been, Bass?" Blair demands, attempting to steady herself against the elevator door and pout in a way she hopes can pass for something like sexy despite the fact that the gin has numbed her lips a little.

"Oh," Chuck drawls, grabbing her before she topples backwards into the penthouse when the door opens. "Let's see. Tonight I've been in Alicia … and … Casey, was it?"

"Ugh, gross," Serena offers as Blair glares, and scampers off with a shout about peeing.

"You're such an ass, Bass," Blair declares, suddenly stormy though still relying on his arms for support. "Worthless, really. A waste of all the time I ever – or lots of people, really, ever – you know, Bass, so many people, _so many people_, more than you ever thought or appreciate - they care. But you know what, nevermind, it's stupid and I hate you and I think I should go to bed."

Chuck's fallen silent, but he nods quickly and leads her up the stairs, depositing her at Serena's bedroom door.

"Bass!" Blair cries when he's taken approximately three steps. He turns.

"Blair?"

"I didn't mean that!" she steps toward him and he catches her when the step turns into the beginnings of a faceplant. "I didn't mean any of that." She says against his chest, and he sighs, looking up at the ceiling and trying to force himself not to _feel_ so much because she's drunk and they're long since over and, she's right.

"None of it? I mean, some of that was pretty spot-on, Waldorf," he replies, trying with a half-smile to guide her back to Serena's room, but she holds onto him.

"No. It wasn't. It was mean, and I know I'm mean, and you're mean, and that's like our _thing_, but I don't want it," she insists. "I don't hate you. I lo… I miss you. And I didn't get into Yale." She laughs, vaguely hysterically.

"I didn't get into Yale, and I didn't apply anywhere else, and I'm pretending it's all not true because I have no future now! None. Nothing. I ruined everything and here I am and I'm yelling at you and it's all _my_ fault! And I'm trying not to be Blair anymore because I ruined Blair, but it's not working!"

Chuck takes a moment to regain his composure, picking his dropped jaw up off the floor, and then carefully puts a hand at the back of her head, keeping his other arm wrapped around her waist, and holding her against him.

"Fuck," he whispers. "Blair … why didn't you … we can figure it out. Together."

She thinks she's heard those words before, and they sounded just as sincere but somehow, in her memory, they were too light, too sure, the last time. When Chuck says them they're desperate and calculated and a little insane. Familiar. What she knows. How she _is_.

She _wants_ to coast through existence like Carter does, she thinks. She _wants_ it to all be simple, and she _wants_ to take it as it comes and enjoy it all, and laugh when it doesn't work out and move on to the next great thing life has to offer. But that's not her, and she doesn't think it can be.

And though, of all people, she knows that's not it when it comes to Carter, and it's just the side he offers to the world, she thinks she'd better forget that for the moment.

Because she's turned her face to Chuck's and found his lips and now she can't stop.


	7. Breakdown II

_**Disclaimer: I don't own Gossip Girl.**_

_Note: Eeek, the C/B caused a little stir, hm? While I love Chuck, and C/B, I must say I'm happy to see most everyone reading is getting on Team Carter. Thank you all for your wonderful reviews, I love hearing from you. _

_To __**Lily**__: I had never thought much about my ability to hint B/N vs. B/C. I've been attempting to make both evident as being important parts of B's life … I will say I find Chuck harder to write than anyone. And as for Carter, I can't really explain my affection for him. I agree, the show does not give us much to go with, although I do think it hints that he's not so much a villain as just a playboy, which is what I go with, adding in my own layers. And as for Sebastian Stan's influence, sure. I love his portrayal on the show, and the man is stunning. ;)_

_To __**mystripedskirt**__: I didn't realize you already HAD written some Carter/B … on my list of required reading for tomorrow or Monday. I'm excited._

_To __**hiddenletter**__: Ha. You win the Chapter 6 Award for Review That Made Me Laugh. Charles is indeed the patron saint of Gossip Girl. _

_Thank you for reading. – Sarah_

**Breakdown II.**

Chuck looks like a child when he sleeps, all fluttering eyelashes on flushed cheekbones and tousled dark hair tumbling over his forehead.

Blair supposes that when it comes right down to it, when he's not dressed up in Bart's ties, with his hair arranged all slick and off his face, in his new CEO-appropriate style, he is just a child, so maybe she shouldn't be surprised.

His arms are firmly around her in his slumber; she smiles a bit to note that he's always been a cuddler, Chuck has, despite obvious personality traits that would suggest the contrary.

Nate was the one who could never fall asleep facing the person he was in bed with. Or maybe that was just her. She realizes now she's never thought of it that way; also, that it doesn't hurt like she thinks maybe it should.

Carter always means well, she thinks, when it comes to bedtime cuddling, but he tosses and turns once he falls asleep, to the point that more often than not she ends up being the big spoon, just to keep him still.

Carter doesn't look childlike in sleep. He doesn't look innocent, and he doesn't look angelic, but he looks beautiful all the same and he smiles without opening his eyes when she wakes before him and curls herself back into his arms, and he feels like home then.

She leans in now to kiss Chuck softly at the hollow beneath one of his cheekbones, because she thinks that with all the women he's had, Chuck Bass will probably never have as many soft kisses to his cheek as he needs, and also, that maybe it will feel like home and her heart will think about regulating itself.

She realizes suddenly, with her lips still against Chuck's cheek, that she hasn't gotten around to asking Carter what it is that gets to him in his dreams, what it is that makes him so restless, and thinks maybe she should have.

Also, she realizes, despite Chuck's warm embrace, her heart still feels as if it has dropped several inches below her chest, and is hammering wildly somewhere in her guts.

XOXO

Serena is wearing a hole in the carpet, pacing outside Chuck's door when Blair slips out wearing her dress from the night before.

"Where's Chuck?" She hisses, and Blair rolls her eyes and grabs her best friend by the elbow, dragging her down the hall and into her own bedroom.

"Sleeping," she whispers her reply, tone daring. Serena takes the bait.

"And you're, what? Doing the walk of shame? Sneaking out before he gets up? What, B? _What are you doing_?"

Serena thinks hard and she can remember Carter's shockingly gentle touch a lifetime ago in Santorini, and his perpetual, penetrating eye contact and the way his emotions played out over his face so easily like he didn't know or didn't care that that's not allowed in their world.

She more easily remembers the way he's been looking at Blair over the past month – it's the same way Chuck looks at Blair, except without abandon and without any desire to hide it or pretend it was Scotch in his blood or dust in his eye.

"I am _getting out alive_!" Blair's whisper manages to be a shriek, and Serena's blood runs cold as she takes in the wild, broken look in her best friend's eyes. The chestnut gaze is frantic and shattered and entirely too reminiscent of that of her ex-stepbrother sleeping in the next room with scars that all ready run far too deep and that are about to be reopened.

Serena thinks this is entirely too much fire to be playing with, and that she loves two-thirds of the explosions about to be involved and also, she thinks, she doesn't love Carter but she doesn't think he deserves to be burned either, and so that makes all three.

"B, what are you talking about?" she asks shakily. "Talk to me."

Blair closes her eyes and counts to ten before responding, her voice calm and even. "Everything is a mess. Everything. And I made the mess, and I don't know how to fix it. I don't know how to fix me."

Serena opens her mouth, reaching toward her best friend, But Blair steps away from her touch and continues. "But I think I'm the only one who can." She nods. "I ruined everything. I ruined … Blair. And I'm the only one who can fix it. No distractions. No heroes."

XOXO

"You were a distraction," Blair informs Carter calmly over brunch at Pastis three hours later. "That night, last month. The … first night. I needed an escape, a release. You were _perfect_," she recalls her own thoughts.

Carter takes a sip of his mimosa and leans back a little in his chair, regarding her evenly while the champagne feels too fizzy inside of him. He has an uncomfortable feeling about where this is going, and the bright red patent headband perched atop her impeccable curls, and the way she's smiling politely without showing her teeth. "And?"

Blair falters slightly at his almost-brusque demand. "And … thank you. Yes. I wanted to thank you for that."

"Glad I could help," he smiles at her slightly, and she can see the conflict all over his face though he tries to bury the confusion and fear beneath lighthearted reactions and vague arrogance. "Blair, what is this ab-"

"And thank you," she interrupts, suddenly finding it difficult to find enough breath to get her words out. "For the past few weeks. I've had fun. And … for the other night. I apologize again for letting myself get so emotional like that."

He looks alarmed now, and places his hand over hers, opening his mouth to speak.

She jerks hers away and rushes on. "But I think it was a mistake to rush into … anything. As we were discussing the other night, I mean. I've decided I think it would be a bad idea for us to be not not a thing. And to go sailing. And for me to meet your parents in any capacity other than as someone in your same social circle. So I'm going to go. Now."

She gets to her feet rapidly, nearly knocking her chair over behind her and dropping her cloth napkin on the floor by her feet. She bends down to collect it and takes a deep breath, straightening up and noticing he's standing as well.

He holds her gaze and his expression is indescribable, his eyes burning into hers with a million questions that he doesn't ask because he's pretty sure his tongue has swollen and is trying to gag him. "Okay," he tells her, and she thinks she might throw up.

"Okay?" She doesn't know what she wanted. A fight, perhaps. For her. Anger. Perhaps even hurt, she thinks … until she sees the cracks in the armor, a devastation in his eyes threatening to burst through his carefully crafted veneer of steel, and thinks that acknowledgement of how she's hurting him right now might kill her and that would really interfere with the agenda she's yet to organize concerning how to fix her entire life.

He nods, finally. "Of course." His voice is not as carefree as he would like, and she notices. "I'd never ask you to do anything you didn't want to. I…wouldn't want you to be with me if it wasn't what you wanted."

She thinks it's gallant and terrible at once, and there's something too powerful wreaking havoc on her from the inside out and she can't stand the way he's looking at her with soft eyes and tightened facial features and she thinks fire and rage would be better and so she tells him:

"I slept with Chuck. Last night."

She remembers, as she watches him carefully control the slight widening of his clear eyes, so blue with the early afternoon sunlight behind them, where they sometimes look green in shadows, and avert them immediately to the ground, like Nate would, until he feels he's sufficiently cleared them of any tell-tale emotion, and set his jaw in a way that looks painful because maybe physical pain can drown out other types, like Chuck would, that he's more proficient at living their lifestyle than any of them, and there won't be a scene now.

He nods slightly. "I guess it's good we're not a thing, then." He's polite enough not to mention she could have waited eight hours or so and then he really wouldn't have a case, not that he's about to plead one anyway, because he can barely stand upright at the moment.

She nods as well, and turns on her heel, but he catches her arm and she looks back.

"Call any time," he offers, or begs, she's not really sure, and she thinks it might be both and something in her chest constricts as she forces herself to walk out of the restaurant without a backward glance.

The diners around their now half-empty table politely avert their eyes and pretend he doesn't exist when Carter Baizen nearly doubles over and slides back down into his seat, breathing irregular and the color drained from his face.


	8. Drunk Dialing

_**Disclaimer: I don't own Gossip Girl.**_

_Thank you for reading. -- Sarah_

**Drunk Dialing.**

Blair drunk dials Carter Monday night.

Or, at least, she dials him while in the presence of alcoholic beverages. Whether or not she's actually in control of her senses and actions is entirely arbitrary, she decides, and she's going on the assumption that she is absolutely _wasted_, thank you very much.

At her own insistence, she and Serena are at 1Oak and her best friend has admirably stepped into the role she herself held for years, that of The BFF/ Babysitter, remembering to order water in between martinis and keep one eye on her at all times.

When a leering but harmless investment banker falls all over himself to distract the blonde's attention, Blair takes the opportunity to step aside with her phone.

She lets it ring once before hanging up, and he replies via text approximately 2 minutes later with a _Hi, B._

She stares at the phone, not responding, until it rings in her hand, and she takes an eye-watering gulp from her drink before bringing the receiver to her ear.

"Carter?" she feigns confusion and hopes completely in vain that the two drinks she's had have made her speech at least a hint slurred because hearing his voice has eliminated any chance she thought she'd had of faking it – it's hard enough just to remember to breathe. "Why are you calling?"

"You called me first, Blair," he replies, and she suddenly feels absolutely, entirely ridiculous but she's in too far and so she keeps up the charade.

"I did not. _You_ just called _me_."

Her heart aches and she feels a suspicious pricking at the back of her eyes when he plays along without further resistance. "Just wanted to see how you're doing," he tells her.

She can hear amusement laced through his easy tone, mixed in with something deeper that she allows, or forces, the alcohol in her system to blur for the moment, and she starts to wonder if she needs to restructure the reorganizations within the outline of her reconstruction-of-life plan again.

XOXO

She has breakfast with her mother and Cyrus on Wednesday morning, and Eleanor launches into a litany of suggestions as to what she might do with her life since it's confirmed that she's not now, nor will ever be, Yale-bound.

It's not that the notion of faux-clerking for Cyrus under the guise of getting a jump-start on her original plans for her post-baccalaureate education (something prestigious and dispensable, she once thought, an MBA or a JD, since really it was just to be for title when she took her husband's name) or spending some time in France with Harold and Roman ("Blair, it would just be so much easier to explain why you're seeking spring semester admission to the Sorbonne than it would be if we were talking about Columbia!") are particularly vile, so she's not sure why her yogurt parfait attempts to climb back up her throat.

She adds a dash of Frangelico to her black coffee once her parental figures are back to paying attention only to each other, and then she dials Carter.

She lets the phone ring once before hanging up, and his text comes back more quickly this time.

_Drinking in the morning are we, B?_

It makes her smile, but her heart sinks when the phone remains silent in her palm as the five-minute mark passes.

XOXO

Chuck catches her in the hall of the Van der Bass penthouse on her way to see Serena Thursday afternoon and pulls her into his room with a light hand, heavy eyes and a fantastic Armani suit.

"Meeting with the board?" she asks as he simultaneously declares, "We've got to talk."

They both look down at the floor for a moment, and when they look up they're both smiling but it doesn't even come near their eyes.

"You just left," he says, finally, and he hates the weakness in the words but he doesn't take them back or try to cover them up with more.

She surprises him when she lays a hand on his forearm.

"I know. I'm sorry," she tells him. "That night was … I've been a little in over my head lately."

He holds her gaze, comprehending, and nods slowly. "So it was just …"

"I do love you, Chuck," she says, and something in him soars, but he thinks too high, maybe, like it's about to leave the stratosphere he's in for one far, far away, or at least across the park for one that someone _else_ is existing in.

"You mean, miss me?" he asks quietly, recalling her outburst.

"That too," she replies softly, and moves her hand to take his. "We've both got a lot to figure out. I thought … I thought once that maybe we were going to figure it all out together."

She steps closer to him with a sad kind of half smile and straightens his steely lavender tie, and he puts his hands over hers against his chest, trapping it there gently.

"I kind of think now we might need to do it on our own," she continues. "We're Chuck and Blair, and we'll always be there, but …"

"Maybe it's still not all we need," he finishes for her, and his dark eyes meet an even darker mirror, twin pools reflecting what could have been, maybe even should have been in some universe, but ran its course before they could manage to catch up.

XOXO

Friday night while they're getting dressed to go out she finally tells Serena about Yale. She starts to apologize because her best friend wasn't the first she confided in, though she also wasn't the last, but Serena's already enveloped her in floods of sympathy and blonde hair and is promising to figure it out with her, spewing panicked chatter of late applications and even transferring.

"It's okay, S," she assures her. "I've got it."

"You do?" Serena replies, managing to sound dubious and supportive at once in the way only a best friend can.

"Well, no," Blair admits. "But I will."

Serena nods slowly and says okay and to remember she's there for her, and Blair gives her a tight hug and then runs to the kitchen for pre-game cocktails.

With a bottle of Belvedere (closed) in hand, she lets the phone ring four times, and there's a hint of concern amidst the confusion in Carter's voice when he answers. It's the first time she hasn't hung up after the first ring.

"Blair? Are you alright?" he asks. She's silent for a moment and he remembers the game. "I mean … I was just calling to…" he begins, if a little weakly.

"Carter, remember when you liked me?" she interrupts.

"I still like you," he replies without hesitation, and she smiles against the receiver and tells him to quit drunk dialing.

XOXO

Nate runs into Carter for what he really - _seriously now, god of coincidences_, he thinks to himself - considers to be the third time too many in as many weeks when he and Vanessa are heading into Beatrice for a drink Saturday night.

He's taken aback when Carter briefly looks at him with an exhausted, fairly bereft kind of gaze that he thinks couldn't possibly be any less Baizen, and offers a ghost of smile devoid of any arrogance or mischief and a nod in greeting and signals the bartender for his check.

Nate's still staring at his back with furrowed brows when Vanessa nudges him at his side.

"I know you hate him," she says quietly, in that tone he adores that's just so Vanessa, the one that's so full of inherent kindness and perception that it manages to eclipse the superiority and judgment he thinks would probably drive him nuts otherwise. "But …"

She trails off because in truth she knows nothing of the older boy except the veiled anguish clouding his light eyes, and Nate wants more than anything to tell her that yes, he does hate him and there are no _buts_ …

But.

Something uncomfortably like empathy swells inside of him and instead he hears himself asking if Carter wants to have a drink with them.

Carter turns again to them and smiles for real this time, still slight but not vacant, surprise crossed with what just might be gratitude touching his features, and shakes his head.

"Thanks, Nate," he replies, and nods in Vanessa's direction. "But I should get going. I'm heading out of town for a while Monday, and I've got a lot to take care of before then."

Three sets of eyes turn to his phone on the bar, where it rings once and falls silent.

"And I've got to return that call."


	9. Rebound

_**Disclaimer: I don't own Gossip Girl.**_

_Thank you for reading, and again thank you to all who have left me such nice reviews. You are all wonderful._

_--Sarah_

**Rebound.**

Carter has just put his phone in his pocket when he collides with a small figure outside the Waverley Inn and is met by wide blue eyes and a quick-fire exclamation of apology accompanied by a peal of laughter.

The awkward meet-cute introduction commences and he learns her name is Brooke. He's surprised to find himself instantly charmed, because really just moments ago his head was swimming all uncharacteristically as it has been for days and it had almost reached the point where he wasn't certain such pleasant sensations were possible anymore.

She's dressed all in black, patterned tights and patent pumps that are probably two seasons old but he's never been one to notice or care about things like that, and a ponytail. It's the uniform of a cocktail waitress and she unperturbedly informs him she wasn't up to par with the bar's dress code and apologizes once more before moving to head past him.

He catches her by the elbow and she smiles knowingly, like she's been in this position before, because she has dozens of times over, when he wields his power as a Baizen at the door and they head for the bar together.

XOXO

Blair hangs up following her most recent "drunk dial" to Carter and regards herself steadily in the mirror.

"No more."

She showers for what feels like a lifetime, letting the hot water work out the knots in her neck, and tries not to think about how tired he had sounded when he'd dutifully called her back and let her pretend it was all his idea.

Like there was nothing left but yet he'd still picked up to give her something, anything he could.

She probably should read more into that, but then she worries it's just her fooling herself. After all, she's always thought the men in her life were something more than they turned out to be.

She'd meant what she said about distractions, she assures herself, and so even if he and his penetrating eyes were going to insist upon maintaining a permanent residence inside her mind every time she closed her eyes, she was just going to have to evict them with more pressing thoughts.

_Tomorrow's the day_, she tells herself as she carefully applies a coat of Chanel Paparazzi to her nails because scheduling a manicure has somehow slipped her mind for entirely too long. She's not sure what's been keeping her so preoccupied, and she really has no idea why there's a strange sensation like melancholy when she firmly insists to herself that whatever it is is done, gone, over, the end.

Tomorrow is the day she'll figure it all out, and she doesn't need anyone's help.

XOXO

Brooke drinks Ketel One and soda, like all the Brookes he's known before, and she talks with flushed passion and exuberance about being head over heels in love, and when she does so she means New York.

He had her pegged the moment he laid eyes on her, but as she goes on, all flashing white teeth and glowing cheeks, his smile broadens to a grin as he remembers how much he likes the Brookes of the world.

He doesn't ask because he already knows: She's about his age, recently graduated from college, probably someplace green and rolling and gothic in New England and after she finished her degree in something like Literature or Poly Sci she decided all she wanted to do was see the world and so she started with New York, because it's hard, when you're 22 and not something along the lines of a Baizen, to just take off and do it. And really, New York is world enough for most people.

She tells him she's from Boston and his grin becomes a smirk and he slyly asks what part of New Hampshire or someplace she's _actually_ from, and she laughs delightedly at his insight and informs him that _actually_, it's Rhode Island, Narragansett at that, and then she surprises him right back when she asks him to tell her where he's been, like, _really_ been in his life.

He was sure she'd have had him neatly boxed in as already being fitted firmly in his father's shoes and pulling 80 hours in a corner office, but she shakes her head and scoffs.

"Please," she tells him. "I've been here 9 months. I've met a million of you, but they didn't have … _something_. You're different."

He's shocked by his relief, because he's been feeling for a month now that he's been losing that part of him, that _something_ that has kept him perpetually unsatisfied by the narrow-minded life of privilege surrounding him.

He thinks maybe he was in part ready to lose it for something else, but since the something else has been gone he's been desperate to find who he was before again.

So he tells Brooke about Asia, and he tells her about Eastern Europe and South America, and her eyes are bright and she leans in close to hear him and she shakes her head in lots of wonder and asks where to next.

"Paris," he says, and there's something like disappointment in her expression, though she pushes it away quickly.

"Oh," she replies. "Paris. But it's so … well. Paris."

He knows what she means, and he signals the bartender for another round and changes the subject to European literature because he's just realized he can't simultaneously be Carter Baizen and explain that he's going to Paris because he desperately needs to leave New York but he's still childishly and pathetically hopeful that he can somehow, on neutral ground, run into the only bit of New York that has ever made him want to stay and consider the life he was born into.

And maybe they can start over.

And without asking too many questions the only place he can think of that such a ridiculous pipe dream might be possible is someplace south of Paris.

It's stupid and pathetic and the stuff of much, much weaker men, he thinks, and so he quickly adds two shots of Patron to their drink order and gives Brooke a rogue grin and asks where she lives in the city.

XOXO

Blair wonders how she got here, as she sips her nonfat latte and tries to focus on the blandly handsome face of Fletcher Evans.

Over the last half hour his voice has gone from soothingly deep and distinguished to quite droning and irritating, and she has half a mind to demand to know what exactly he's been prattling on about since she stopped paying attention five minutes in and request that he get to the point and wrap it up.

She'd risen with the sun, ready to take back her life, and it started off quite well, if she does say so herself. Her Philip Lim tulip skirt and the sleek ponytail at the nape of her neck put her in efficiency mode and she'd grabbed a legal pad from Cyrus' study and headed for the park.

After 15 minutes she'd disgustedly tossed aside the paper allegedly outlining her new plan, which read something like a child's fairytale - _wasn't she over that by now, after everything_?! – and furiously crossed both her legs and her arms where she sat on a bench opposite Sheep's Meadow and closed her eyes to focus.

All that had been behind her lids was a vision of another pair of eyes, though, liquid blue-green and relentless and she'd sucked in a breath and opened her own only to find herself staring into a different pair, light brown and sparkling at the sight of her.

Fletcher Evans' father had been a partner in Harold's firm years ago before starting his own practice, and if there'd been any older crush she'd had that could have rivaled the one they all had but never spoke about because it was something like the stuff of legends on Carter, it was on Fletcher the dashing Dalton lacrosse star.

_And now here we are_, she sighs to herself.

Brunching at L'Absinthe, though she's not eating and he isn't noticing. She thinks perhaps the crush was best left to junior high, but then she forces herself to smile and push such a thought away, mind racing.

Fletcher is exactly what she needs, she thinks, clearly she's sure, though her thought process is ringing rather hysterically inside her own brain and ears. He's everything she ever said she wanted and then tried to convince herself other people were. He's got Nate's good looks, minus the poor-little-rich boy ennui, and Chuck's confidence, minus the … _Chuck_. And Carter … well she's not sure what he has that Carter doesn't, aside from perhaps a willingness to abide by all the rules.

Oddly, that quality doesn't comfort her.

"And so you'll be headed to Yale," Fletcher's saying just as she's shaking off a chill that has suddenly come over her. "Will you be looking to study law after your undergrad? You know I was an editor of the Yale Law Journal-"

"No," Blair interrupts him, suddenly, loudly, and he and the diners at the nearest table fall silent in surprise. She attempts to relax her tone. "No, I won't be heading to Yale. I wasn't accepted. I wasn't accepted anywhere."

She takes a sip of water and hopes her breathing is controlled as her heart races with the exertion of saying it out loud, again, and then to herself, again.

_I am Blair Waldorf, and I have no idea what I'm doing._

Fletcher nods slowly. "Well," he considers. "What, then?"

She waves her legal pad around and rolls her eyes. "I was getting to that, before I got … distracted …" she trails off as he looks somewhat baffled though not exactly bothered.

She realizes the weight of the word, _distraction_, taking in the vapid one before her and considering the one she'd described as so just over a week but at the same time a hundred years before – the one who traced the contours of her face and offered to help her figure it all out even if he was just as clueless as she was, and was still there at the touch of a button even after she'd sent him away.

So maybe today won't be the day she'll figure it all out, she thinks, as a numbing wave of loss spreads through her entire body, save for a burning sensation in her chest.

She leaves the restaurant and walks uptown.

XOXO

Brooke lives on the Upper East Side, exactly where he knew she'd live – the Upper East Side for recent yuppie graduates, not for Manhattan's elite. Far enough up in that a few more blocks would put her in Spanish Harlem, but then again if it had only been a couple of blocks west toward the park she'd have been in Carnegie Hill. As it stands she's someplace in the low 90's between First and Second, at once brilliantly close but light years away from the Upper East Side of the world he's supposed to exist in, in a walkup, and he loves this neighborhood and thinks rather ruefully that he's sure her apartment is delightfully miniscule and may even have a cockroach or two sneaking around in the walls.

But despite hanging out with her straight through after hours at the bar and then having Bloody Marys for breakfast as the sun rose, he's not going up.

He likes Brooke. He's liked many a girl like Brooke, and he thinks she's a lot like him. New York's been her playground like the world's been his, but he can't meet in the middle with her because of late New York has somehow become, for him, what it was always supposed to be: Home.

But there's no place for him at home, and so he has to flee.

Brooke smiles at him without a hint of disappointment or confusion because she gets it, and because when it's not quite yet home, New York is all about falling in love for the night and then starting over the next.

It's something he knows well, and suddenly, sickeningly, realizes he never wants again.

She thanks him for bringing her home and points him in the direction of a coffee shop she thinks he'll like, and then she casually mentions, without meaning it like she's seeking an invitation, that Paris is not a place one goes alone, and then she disappears forever.

XOXO

Blair is pretty sure she's never believed in signs of any sort, because she and fate have really never gotten along considering fate always seemed to be of the mind that _it_ was in charge.

And everyone knows that despite her penchant for occasionally taking large drinks from a cup of crazy, Blair Waldorf is in charge of _everything_.

That considered, though, a current runs through her body when she recognizes tousled brown hair and the curve of a set of shoulders beneath a rumpled white dress shirt in a coffee shop foreign to her someplace uptown she's not even sure how she ended up in, and she holds her breath and lets fate have this one.

He turns, and she exhales and does the only thing her racing heart will let her because it's completely shut down any function her brain might have and so there's nothing left to suggest an alternative: She crosses the distance between them in fewer steps than her slight stature and 4-inch Choos would suggest possible and thoughtfully removes his coffee from his hand and sets it on the counter before flinging her arms around his neck and kissing him like it's the end of the world.

He's smiling as she finally breaks away, just far enough to gasp for breath, her face still touching his, and he holds her at her waist in a way that feels to her he'd hold her through anything and nothing would get him to let go.

"I'm sorry," she tells him. "I'm done, now. I'm done trying to plan, I'm done trying to fix. The only thing I want to fix is this."

He moves one hand to tangle it in her hair and raises his eyes skyward in mock-consideration.

"Well," he tells her. "You're a little late. I was just on my way out of town. This evening, actually."

"I'll go with you," she replies instantly, and he laughs.

"You don't even know where I'm going!"

"It doesn't matter. Wherever it is, it's the only place I want to be," she explains, her own lips curving in a smile when she takes in the light in his eyes.

His grin softens and he brings his other hand up so that both can cup her face and she holds his gaze, nodding, sure. He kisses her forehead, and then meets her lips until they both run out of breath again, and then he takes her hand and reaches for his coffee.

"Let's go home," he says, and she nods.

They've made it back down to the '80s when turns to him, tone nonchalant but eyes a bit worried.

"It wasn't Cambodia or someplace, was it?" she asks. "I mean, at least say it was Singapore or something with decent hotels, I don't even _have_ a backpack …"

He laughs for the better part of two blocks and then stops on a corner to kiss her again.

_**Note: Oh, that was long for this series. Hm. Hope no one minded.**_


	10. Apocalypse

_Disclaimer: I don't own Gossip Girl._

_I've been trying to reply individually to all who have left me such nice and constructive reviews. I fear these little notes might be a bit clunky and annoying, but I wanted to recognize those who don't log in as well. So, to __**Desi**__: I'm sorry I momentarily devastated you but I'm also thrilled that you may or may not read my fic while drunk; to __**KitKat**__: I am so glad you are happy with my depiction of the city, as it is after all my favorite place in the world when it comes down to it; to __**Leona**__: Thank god I haven't made Carter schmoopy, haha. Also the line you highlighted was my favorite too. It was sort of my attempt at defining what Carter does for Blair in as few words as possible, because clearly I can be too wordy at times; to __**Lily**__: Chanel Paparazzi is just a nail polish shade. It's lovely. And no, I don't live in Brooke's neighborhood; to __**Elise**__ and __**Miky**__, thank you as well for your kind reviews, I am so glad you like the story! _

_So, onward. And thank you for reading. – Sarah_

**Apocalypse.**

_12:43 a.m._

"Carter," Blair coos softly, almost inaudibly because she's not sure if she really wants to wake him or not, and gazes down at where her newly-reinstated not-boyfriend is fast asleep beside her in her sea of blue blankets.

His breathing is even, his eyelashes casting spiky shadows over the tops of his cheekbones, and her heart constricts in her chest in a way that's a million worlds away from the wild hammering she'd nearly grown accustomed to of late.

She feels suddenly, completely at ease, she realizes, looking down at him, despite the fact that the carnage from the trainwreck that's become her life is still bleeding all over the place.

She can't remember if she's ever felt completely at ease before, and the realization makes her take pause.

_"I'm done, now," she'd told him. "I'm done trying to plan, I'm done trying to fix. The only thing I want to fix is this."_

She'd known the words were true because she'd had no control over them or the way they'd flown from her with all the ease of simply exhaling, and he'd accepted them on the spot.

He was the one thing she'd ruined that she'd really cared to get back, she realizes, and as everything else was still smoldering around her and spiting her for her faults, her mistakes backing her into corner after corner without an escape route, he'd taken her hand and walked her home.

And he'd stayed. And he was going to stay.

She thinks, anyway.

And she knows she's not supposed to be planning. She's supposed to be embracing what is, not controlling what could be. But still.

"Carter!" she jerks upright, and he does the same at her cry, blinking and somewhat disoriented, but instantly wrapping her in his arms and demanding to know if she's alright.

"Well, yes," she replies, mollified. "I'm fine. I just … are you leaving?"

He pulls back slightly, bewildered. "Leaving? I was _sleeping_."

"I know! But what about when you wake up? Or … Tuesday. You had a plane ticket! Possibly for Cambodia!"

He's laughing now and he pulls her back to him. "I'm right here, Blair."

"But -"

"I'm not leaving!"

She relaxes against his chest and lets him guide them back down against her pillows. She tells him she's not tired yet and he tells her he won't sleep yet then, either.

XOXO

_1:54 a.m._

"No, I _promise_ you I would survive the Apocalypse better than you would," Carter tells her firmly, and her jaw drops. "I would! I'm just better equipped!"

"What's that supposed to mean?" she demands warningly, and he rolls his eyes. She's pretty sure they might be overtired as the idle pillow talk has escalated to the absurd, but there's no going back, particularly considering she obviously has to win now.

"I mean because of my lifestyle, my experiences," he explains. "I know how to handle myself in threatening situations, foreign places. I'm resourceful. I can fight."

"Um, oookay," she rolls her eyes. "So you double as a ninja? Anyway, that has nothing to do with it! You need to have people skills!"

"People skills?" he scoffs. "It's the Apocalypse! There probably aren't any people, and if there are, they want to eat you!"

"Exactly! So you need to be able to … commandeer them! And lead the team to safety, or whatever … what?" Blair demands.

"No way," Carter declares flatly. "If it's nuclear winter, first of all, the only goal is to get to Mexico or wherever alive. So that means no commandeering, just _crazy_. And fast. I could run to Mexico way faster than you."

"Whatttttt? First of all, if it's _crazy_ that's important, I think I've got it covered-" she pauses to hit him with a pillow when Carter nods his assent to that statement, and he takes the opportunity to pull her into his lap. "And running to Mexico faster? No. Seriously. It would be most important to find safety in numbers. It's warmer to be huddled in numbers. And plus, then you can share supplies."

"I like the huddled in numbers part," Carter murmurs against her neck. "But the supply thing is where they get you. One minute you're making s'mores with the group, the next someone's bashing your head in to get to your marshmallows."

Blair tilts her head up to look at him, eyebrows raised, before he drops his lips to her own.

"And _that_," she informs him as they pause for breath. "Is why a good leader is so important. To keep everyone in line. No dissenters! I would be captain of Team S'mores, and you'd be running to Mexico all cold and alone, no marshmallows-_hey_!"

"But you see," Carter explains, as he pins her beneath him and begins tickling her sides as she squeals. "It's clear I could overthrow the captain of Team S'mores and make off with all the marshmallows." He stops tickling her and buries his hands in her hair. "And the captain herself."

She laughs into his kiss a few minutes later and he draws back, curious.

"You still lose," she informs him. "Ninja or not, you at least need … the captain of Team S'mores … to survive the Apocalypse. Admit it."

He shakes his head and grins at her, conceding.

XOXO

_2:31 a.m._

Team S'mores excavates the Waldorf kitchen in search of sustenance, and the captain triumphantly unearths exactly five dark chocolate covered Godiva marshmallows and a box of biscuits left over from the tea Eleanor had held the weekend prior for some new potential buyers.

Carter attempts to look skeptical but he fears that all that's coming across is a love-or-like-or-whatever-sick grin as his eyes trail over her, all tiny and proud and glowing eyes, her hair in tangles and her lip gloss absent.

He realizes now that's probably all over his face too, and his grin widens and he shakes his head at her.

She drives him absolutely insane, knowingly or unknowingly he's not sure, as she struts around in her tiny lavender Guia La Bruna nightgown and busily forms little sandwiches from her ingredients and then looks at him expectantly. He raises an eyebrow.

"Well, resourceful one?" she demands. "Make me a campfire or something, I don't know what to do with these!"

He laughs out loud and reaches her in three steps and they christen (at least, Blair hopes) the countertop nearest the refrigerator instead, the fear of being caught by Dorota in her bunny slippers making it all the more delicious, and then they eat the marshmallows and leave the biscuits.

XOXO

_3:47 a.m._

She tries not to panic when the familiar and unpleasant sensation washes over her, but within minutes her skin is practically crawling and she can feel the marshmallows churning inside of her, her body demanding to be evacuated.

Anger manages to take precedence for a few minutes, and she yells silently at herself as she lies rigid that she's been fine, that she _is_ fine, that this cannot and should not be happening again. She hasn't needed it through everything that's happened, and she certainly doesn't need it now, with Carter asleep beside her where he promised he'd be. Not gone, because he said he wouldn't be.

She fixed it, she did. The one thing that mattered. And so this shouldn't be happening.

The panic seeps back in as she realizes it is, though, and she feels like she's choking as the hair rises on her arms and the back of her neck, and so she moves to get up.

"Don't," Carter says, softly like maybe he's dreaming, but his voice freezes her and she turns in the dark to see he's shifted to face her. "Where are you going?"

"Bathroom," she replies, fairly gasping the single word out and hoping he doesn't pick up on the exertion.

"No," he replies, resting a hand against her cheek, his thumb tracing one of her eyebrows. "Stay here."

She laughs at this, closing her eyes under his touch and breathing deeply as the frenzy inside of her subsides just a notch.

"I have to pee, Carter," she informs him as he's kissing the corner of her mouth, and she can feel him smiling.

"So hold it," he insists, and she laughs more loudly, the panic subsiding further.

"You're disgusting," she says, placing a kiss at his crown as his head lolls sleepily against her shoulder, and she freezes again briefly as he pulls away from her face, sinking back down against the bed and curling himself against her, arm around her waist.

"And you're beautiful," he tells her, eyes closed, cheek resting against her stomach.

She runs her hand through his hair and doesn't miss the significance of the instant relief that floods her at his words, with the knowledge that he doesn't even know the weight they carry but says them because they're true; and in his arms, with the knowledge that he doesn't even know the way they're holding her together in this moment but offers them because he wants to.

He gives himself to her so freely, and she decides it's time she does the same, and that it will be the Blair that he deserves, and that she deserves too.

"Okay, I'll hold it."


	11. Entanglement, and Vodka

_Disclaimer: I don't own Gossip Girl._

_Thanks as always for reading, and the generous feedback I've received. I apologize for the lengthier-than-usual period between chapters – that one-shot wouldn't get out of my head until I wrote it down, and then work was a killer. Isn't it awful when (un-fun) real-life obligations demand you away from your fictional land of Carter? On the up side, I spent my tax return gloriously on key summer wardrobe updates! Always enjoyable. However, Topshop in Soho? Sh*t is bananas. Seriously. Avoid. Go all the way to the UK if need be. Anyway! On with it. I'm out of my angstspace and sending our favorites on vacation. Hope you like! -- Sarah_

**Entanglement, and Vodka.**

Blair suffers a momentary attack of fashion panic, followed by another kind of panic, when the end of April arrives with unseasonably warm weather and she realizes she has absolutely no idea what to pack or how to behave for the weekend on Nantucket with Carter and his parents.

The trip has been so long-anticipated, it seems, and escalated from a - somewhat terrifying-sounding, she thinks, honestly - sailing excursion to a three-day affair with something of an itinerary and mentions of his grandparents being in town as well.

Carter had been almost sheepish, with a flicker of nerves in his downcast eyes when he'd recalled the earlier-abandoned subject a couple of weeks back, and she'd felt that familiar tugging inside her chest and involuntarily reached out to brush his hair back off of his forehead before telling him that, of course, she'd still love to go.

His smile had lit up the room but he'd been too quick to assure her that he'd make it clear she was just accompanying him as his friend, and the tugging in her chest had become somewhat unpleasant. She'd frozen her smile in place, though, because he'd said it for her and she knew it.

She realizes now, as she stares hopelessly into her closet, that she's been holding the ball in her court all along because he's been letting her and she's still not quite sure how to tell him she wants him to steal it from her.

XOXO

Her slightly hazy memories of her last time on the island (for Figawi four years prior with the Archibalds) recall far too many cobblestones and an alternate universe sense of overwhelming wealth packaged neatly in understatement with plentiful accents in insane colors, so she replaces Louis with Longchamp, and Louboutin with Lanvin, and rounds out her packing with pearls and polos.

She's tugging at her hair and considering flatironing when Carter appears in the mirror behind her with an amused little smile.

"You," he announces with a look up and down as he leans against the doorframe and casually folds his arms across his chest. "Are going to freeze."

She glances down at her tailored black shorts and sapphire silk blouse. "I need a hat, don't I? Nantucket is a hat place!"

He laughs and crosses the room to kiss her hello. "No, you're perfect."

She smiles up at him with her arms around his neck. "Yeah? Well you're …" she pauses, taking him in for a moment. "Really … _preppy_. What? You're putting Nate to shame here!"

He laughs again as she toys with his nautical flag-patterned belt. "What, did you think you were the only one who can dress the part?" he demands. "And, also, I think we've established that anything Archibald can do, I can do much, _much_ better."

She raises her eyes, wide and playful, back to his, her fingers still playing along his belt, and nods. "Oh, I think we've definitely established that," she agrees before asking him how long they have before the jet is scheduled for take off and placing her palms flat against his chest to push him gently toward her bed.

XOXO

Carter's mother instantly clasps Blair's hands in her own and kisses both of her cheeks when they meet the Baizens at the runway.

Emily Baizen has her son's bright eyes and as Blair inhales her wake of Chanel No. 19 she catches sight of the modest-sized brilliant cut diamond studs in the woman's ears and recalls, years ago, Eleanor conspiratorally informing her that they'd been the first gift Mr. Baizen had ever given her and she'd worn them every day since.

"I can't tell you how happy we are to have you with us," the woman tells her now as Blair prays that the tell-tale wrinkles that resulted from her little pre-flight activity have fallen out of her blouse. "And that you've been spending so much time with Carter."

"Mom," Carter protests, rolling his eyes alongside his father, and his mother turns to him to place a hand on his cheek while keeping the other on Blair's arm.

"What, darling? Can I help it if I enjoy having something – _someone_ - keep you around for more than 48 hours at a time?"

With that she turns and guides them all breezily toward the jet while asking after Eleanor and Cyrus, though not before Blair catches the hint of blush that creeps across Carter's cheeks.

XOXO

"I thought Hyannis was on Cape Cod?" Blair asks, confused, as the jet begins descent a little more than an hour later, and raises her eyebrows at Carter as his parents look at the two of them with a mixture of sympathy and indulgence.

"It is," Carter confirms. "This is a detour. You and I aren't taking the jet to Nantucket."

"We're not?" Blair replies dubiously, and before she knows what's happened they're in a cab pulling up to the Ocean Street docks.

"We are _not_ taking the _ferry_," she blurts, disgusted, as she stares at the large white ship before her.

"Of course we are," Carter tells her calmly. "Because I'm willing to bet you never have, and you haven't really done Nantucket unless you've arrived by boat."

"So let's take a boat," Blair agrees. "How about that one?" she indicates a sleek, triple-masted schooner with tags from Bar Harbor in a slip farther down the docks. "Or at least the catamaran? Carter!"

He's shaking his head and laughing as he hauls her gently by the elbow up the gangway.

XOXO

The ferry isn't so bad, Blair decides as she's sipping a Sapphire martini 30 minutes later and Carter is pointing out the various homes that make up the Kennedy Compound with one hand while his other arm rests securely around her waist.

He'd let her sweat for all of five minutes as she tore in horror around three decks of hard wooden benches, cold open air and the distinctly wretched snack bar scents of hot dogs, stale popcorn and draft beer, before informing her that there was in fact a First Class Lounge, for which they did have tickets, at the bow of the ship.

Since then, though, it had been perfectly lovely, with the plush seating and top shelf bar and his arm around her.

She relaxes a bit more against his chest, turning her face from the window and into him to let her eyelashes graze his collarbone, and wonders briefly as something flutters inside of her why she'd ever thought this could just be a distraction.

Another part of her, smaller but no more easily pushed aside, nags in a less pleasant way as she wonders just how far she might have set whatever this _is_ back by making that mistake in the first place, though.

XOXO

She stirs and wakes an hour later, blinking blearily and unfolding her legs from where she'd tucked them up onto the couch just before the rolling waves had lulled her to sleep. Her eyes dart around, searching, and an elderly woman with a white shi tzu in a Vera Bradley carrier smiles kindly at her and tells her that her boyfriend is waiting for her just outside on the deck.

She doesn't issue a correction, just a smile of gratitude, and Carter instantly offers her his hand as she steps out onto the bow, where she immediately shrieks at the cold sea air.

"I _did_ tell you you were going to freeze," he points out with a knowing grin, but he's already put his own fleece jacket over her shoulders and pulled her tightly against the warmth of himself, turning her face gently in the direction of the harbor as the ferry approaches the island.

The day is brilliantly sunny and the water glistens impossibly, like diamonds, as Nantucket comes into view like a postcard, all widow's walks and grey shingles and white shutters, extravagant yachts occupying every slip at Straight Wharf and the downtown cobblestone streets packed with people.

It looks like a fairy tale and Blair lets herself have just a moment to bask as they make their way down the gangway minutes later.

XOXO

She gasps at the bright and plentiful daffodils springing from what appears to be every available window box, streetside garden, bicycle basket, woman's ponytail, and most anywhere else one might find a daffodil, and Carter smiles beside her.

"Yes," he nods with a glint in his eye. "Daffodils. About three million. I had them brought in for you."

She grins back with a raised eyebrow. "That so?" she replies, cocking her head in the direction of the banner over the chamber of commerce welcoming all to Nantucket's Annual Daffodil Weekend.

"Of course," he insists. "Ignore that. Thieves on the tourism board, taking all the credit …"

His eyes are soft and hers shining as she plucks one of the flowers from a planting barrel and tucks it into her wind-tossed curls, and he thinks these perfect moments where he can see the glow he can feel on his face reflected in hers are so foreign to him, and here he'd been so sure he was Carter Baizen and there was nothing left to be foreign to him at this point.

It's ironically the first time he can remember ever being scared of the unknown and so he rushes on with harmless cocky charm because he's never been one to fuck that up, at least.

"Just _wait_ til you see what I've done about hydrangeas in this place," he tells her, smirking as he waits for his heart to calm down.

She's laughing again as he leads her down the street, and she thinks that so much laughing is new for her, and so welcome.

XOXO

He insists they make a stop at the Cisco Brewery before heading to his family's home in Madaket. She makes a fuss about good impressions and he silences her with a hand in the air.

"Please," he tells her. "They were smitten with Blair Waldorf long before you even had the good … or bad … sense to get yourself all entangled with me."

She smiles a little naughtily in response. "The elder Baizens are fans of … entanglement, then?"

He laughs, and replies honestly: "They're fans of me behaving myself, on continents they can keep track of."

He's briefly caught off guard when she catches his lips gently, almost carefully, with her own, kissing him softly without tongue and then again on his cheek.

"I think they're just fans of having you around," she tells him. "I can understand that."

He smiles down at her. "I think you're primarily a fan of entanglement, actually."

She squeals and slaps him playfully on his arm as his hand strays indecently beyond the small of her back.

XOXO

The Brewery is jam-packed with a combination of tourists unknowingly labeling themselves with their too-dark-to-be-aged Nantucket Reds and islanders in seersucker and Reefs despite the chill that never fails to mar springtime in New England.

Blair is instantly charmed by the quaint set up, with the small huts housing the brewery, winery and distillery forming an almost enclave around clusters of crowded outdoor picnic tables. She smiles at Carter and looks in the direction of the winery, but he shakes his head and takes her by the hand to lead her in the opposite direction.

"The distillery?" she asks doubtfully. "_Vodka_ tasting? Really, Carter?"

He offers her one of her favorite smiles, the one that crosses recklessness with certainty, like he knows something she doesn't and it all might be a big joke but not in a way that can hurt her, at least not on his watch, and informs her that they don't have any gin here and the winery is the weakest of the three tastings.

She follows him, then, because she secretly is kind of convinced she just might follow him anywhere, but she makes a point to huff audibly and roll her eyes half-playfully, because, well, she's not sure she's supposed to let him know that yet.

Also because, whether or not the winery is the weakest, like hell she's doing a _beer_ tasting, so vodka it will be.

XOXO

"No, I swear. Vodka martinis from now on!" she exclaims as Carter laughs.

They've made it through the Triple Eight standard 6-flavor vodka tasting – twice – and moved on to pointing at random to the more involved and specialized blends and Blair has decided, and announced more than once, that Tanqueray be _damned_ and she is certain there must be some Russian in her somewhere.

"I. Love. Vodka." She declares seriously. "Oh! Ginger and mango!"

Carter nods to the bartender before grinning back at her. "How much do you think you're going to love vodka _tomorrow_, though?"

She glares at him with one eye, training the other on the half-filled shot glass before her, and sips at it delicately and smiles delightedly.

"I can hold my liquor and you know it, Baizen," she informs him. "Also, this one is soooo good." She offers the remainder to him and he takes it and puts it to the side.

"I want to try the pineapple-bacon one," he counters. "But I'll finish that one after."

She wrinkles her nose at this. "One, ew," she begins, snatching her shot glass back. "And two, no babysitting! I've got this one."

He laughs at her again, and raises his own shot glass to toast her. When they've finished he leans in close to her.

"I'd never try to babysit you," he informs her. "I know you can handle it. I just like looking out for you."

She softens at this admission, resting her forehead against his. "Well, you're pretty good at it," she tells him, but before his smile reaches his eyes she continues. "You could work on fighting for me, though."

He looks genuinely surprised, and straightens up, frowning. "Fighting for you?"

Somewhere in her vodka haze a voice is insisting she should be appalled that she'd just let that one slip, but a louder voice tells her that everything with Carter has been better generally-speaking, and even better than that when she let things happen without trying to control the variables, so she goes with it, waving a hand dismissively.

"Yes," she says. "I mean, no big deal or anything. But, you know. You _did_ let me get away kind of easily there for a minute."

She's surprised when he laughs at this, and teasingly demands, "Oh, you think so?"

He's doing that thing, the one where he's looking like he knows something she doesn't, again, and so she gets apprehensive but raises her chin defiantly all the same. "Well. Yes."

"I disagree," he tells her quietly, leaning in toward her again, and she cocks an eyebrow. "I didn't fight with _you_ for you, no. But I told you – I'd never try to make you do something … be with me … if it wasn't what you wanted …"

She doesn't realize she's holding her breath until he pauses and looks at her curiously, waiting, until she suddenly has to exhale in a rush.

"But I'm still here, aren't I?" he finishes once she's resumed breathing.

The weight of his words descends on her like a tidal wave, and as she finally understands that Carter's fight for Blair Waldorf didn't involve beating Chuck, or Nate, but just the very nature of someone greater - of Carter Baizen himself - she decides she absolutely needs more vodka and that she _will_ try the pineapple-bacon blend.

He nods and turns to beckon the bartender, but she grabs his face between her hands and kisses him with an intensity that suggests she'll never be satisfied that she's holding him close enough until he has actually, physically melded with her.

When they finally come up, gasping for air, their shot glasses have been refilled and the bartender and their surrounding patrons are offering up appreciative nods and a few whistles.


	12. 1,2,3,4

_A/N: Um, hi. I know, it's been well over a month since I've updated. I'd love to say I've been so slow on updating due to Amazing Life Things, but mostly it's been work. With a few Amazing Life Things thrown in, I shouldn't complain ;) Anyway, I hope there's still some Carter/Blair love out there. I promise this story is still alive and kicking in my brain (along with a few other works-in-progress). Thanks as always to those who take the time to review – to the anons: Bee, KitKat, Desi, Elise and Lily, I love hearing from you and am so glad you enjoy the story. And to Miky, yes, I think it's fair to say they're a couple, even if I've built them both so hesitant to ever say it out loud (they will!). And to :), no, no, that wasn't the end! Haha. More to come yet. Here I've given Carter a sister, because I recall Nate mentioning one in 1.4, even if, like with so much of Carter, we know nothing further._

_Disclaimer: I don't own Gossip Girl._

_Thank you for reading. -- Sarah_

**1, 2, 3, 4 …**

Blair is immediately certain of three things when she wakes up with cottonmouth and an even more cotton-y head:

_1.) She's pretty sure she has maybe, possibly, completely fallen for Carter Baizen._

_2.) She's gone blind, as all that greets her when she blinks the sleep from her eyes is an insanely bright blur of pinks and oranges._

_3.) "I hate vodka."_

"Mmm-hmm. Too bad, because it will be your only cure today," a voice teases to her right, and she snaps her head up, blinking furiously, to focus on Carter.

Some amount of squinting later and she makes him out, sitting on a coffee table bathed in mid-morning sunlight and looking like something good enough to eat with the sleeves of his pale blue polo shirt cuffed over his forearms as he offers a giant Bloody Mary in her direction with one hand and sips black coffee from the cup in his other.

"Baizen," she demands slowly, carefully sitting up from where it entirely unacceptably appears she's been passed out directly on her face. "Did I sleep on a _couch_?"

If she didn't know better, she'd think he was laughing at her.

Of course, she does know better, and he is, as he affirms her demand and holds up a hand when her mouth drops open in outrage.

"I _tried_ to bring you to bed," he tells her. "But you weren't having it any other way. You _loved_ the couch last night. _Only_ the couch."

She holds up a fistful of neon plaid beach blanket emblazoned with the Cisco Brewery logo and raises an eyebrow as she takes a hesitant sip of her Bloody Mary, followed by a larger one as she grudgingly realizes his brilliance in providing her with it.

"That too," he confirms, smirking at the gaudy makeshift bedding. "You _also_ loved souvenirs last night."

She's about to demand to know if there was anything else she claimed to be so enamored with last night, but the words die on her lips as she recalls that:

4_.) Last night, Carter Baizen basically pulled his own heart from his chest and pinned it on his sleeve for her, and she basically responded by … taking more shots._

_5.) She's still in her silk blouse, she's certain all her makeup or at least what's left of it, and passed out face down on a couch in the Baizen's Nantucket house._

"So," Carter calls after her casually as she slams her hangover cure down on the table beside him and flees toward a mirror in horror, and she can tell without looking that he's got that wicked glint in his eye. "Are you ready to go sailing?"

_6.) Screw it. She hates Carter Baizen. And vodka._

XOXO

_7.) She really, really hates sailing._

A shriek catches in her throat and escapes as the lamest of little whimpers as she clings frantically to one of the metal sheets on the pathetic excuse of a slab of fiberglass the Baizens are apparently convinced is a sailboat while the threatening navy waters of Nantucket Sound rush at her face.

She closes her eyes and braces for certain hypothermia, shark attack, and drowning, and then feels a slow blush creep across her cheeks as the boat rights and she opens her eyes to meet four matching sets of ice blue, all dancing with laughter.

"You doing okay there, Waldorf?" Carter asks, gently resting an arm around her waist, and she responds with a tight-lipped smile accentuated with a steely glare.

Across from her, Walker Baizen tosses her mane of effortlessly straight pale caramel-colored hair and grins, crooked and utterly disarming, like she stole it straight off of Carter's face and made it just a little bit meaner, as girls always do.

A tall, willowy blonde with a penchant for crewing sailboats, slalom skiing and recycling crusades, Carter's younger sister is as much the antithesis of Blair as Serena is. Shipped off, or run off, to boarding school in Massachusetts by grade nine, the 17-year-old makes only infrequent visits back home to the Baizen penthouse, preferring instead to take her vacations from Andover abroad and rolling her blue eyes in ennui when she deigns a week in Southampton and brings the toast of St. Jude's et al to their knees with one deliberate cross of her long, tan legs.

Okay, so maybe Blair's never forgiven her for swooping in like a vulture in the form of a seventh-grade Aphrodite the time Blair and Nate, in grade 8, were on a – _an unofficial, thankyouverymuch_ – break and accompanied her _boyfriend_ to the social event of the year, a semiformal-turned-formal cruise on the Hudson.

Whatever the case, as Blair breathes in deeply to calm her racing heart at (what she's convinced was) their near-capsize and gives Walker an appraising look from her bare feet up over her infuriatingly preppy outfit of wide-leg blue seersucker pants and a double-breasted navy blue jacket with gold hardware accents at the wrists and the collar-popped and watches the girl do the same (smirking, she swears) toward the salt staining her dark-washed Citizens of Humanity skinny jeans, she feels a challenge.

"I'm great," Blair replies, broadening her tight smile to turn a blinding one in Walker's direction before turning doe eyes on Carter's father and grandfather. "So. Do you gentlemen mind if I take a turn at the … wheel … er …"

Carter hoots and Walker's laugh seems genuine as the elder Baizen men light up.

"It's a tiller," Carter whispers helpfully as she awkwardly climbs past his lap in the boat, and his grandfather shushes him.

"She _knows_, Carter. She's sailed with the Archibalds, yes Blair?"

Carter's face darkens only a little at the mention of the ex that, despite being on her mind due to circumstance is really so, so far from her thoughts, and Blair nods brightly as if to convince herself and grabs at the flimsy device apparently meant for steering this death contraption.

_8.) She really should have paid some attention when sailing with the Archibalds._

XOXO

At lunch she picks haphazardly at an oyster and pear salad and feels Carter's eyes on her with every bite she doesn't eat.

She's not sure if she shocks him or herself more when his mother delicately asks about her plans for the fall and she hears herself run down the list of options, save fleeing to France, that her mother and Cyrus had put on the table what feels like ages ago.

"I just don't think running away is the answer," she hears herself say, and she means it a million ways except for how Carter takes it as he stiffens beside her under his father's gaze.

Without thinking she grabs his hand under the picnic table and holds tight. His fingers instantly entwine with her own.

"I mean," she continues deliberately, as he meets her gaze. "I'm growing up now, coming into the person I'm going to be. I don't want to lose focus just because things don't always go according to plan."

_9.) Sometimes when Carter smiles it's like dawn over the ocean._

She relaxes her grip on his hand just a little but still holds firmly, and eats her salad.

XOXO

_10.) Nantucket reds are ridiculous._

"You know," Walker steps up beside Blair as she regards herself dubiously in a mirror at Murray's Toggery Shop. A pair of salmon-colored, low-rise cotton pants sit at her hips and she's certain she looks a fool, but Carter's sister's eyes are locked on her own in the glass. "We don't _run away_."

"What?" Blair replies, honestly baffled, and turns to face Walker directly. The girl shrugs and sighs a little.

"Oh, those Baizens," she mimics. "Always running away from who they are, always trying to be something else, always thinking they're something better."

Blair cocks her head curiously. "That's not it, then?"

Walker laughs. "Well. I mean, isn't sort of in all of our nature to think we're the best?" she muses, and Blair laughs as well. "But no. It's not running away, it's not shunning a legacy because we hate it … it's … not getting caught up in it before we get the chance to really experience the world outside ours before we're jaded. Before we're too jaded, anyway."

Blair assumes she must look as offended as she feels, because Walker rushes on. "Listen, I just mean … Carter's always been restless, and never had any tolerance for all the bullshit, and even _we've_ never really been a tie for him. But now … it's like he's found something he actually cares about holding onto. Even if it changes him."

"I'd never want to change him," Blair announces instantly, her eyes wide.

Walker rolls her eyes. "Relax, B." She rests her hands on the smaller girl's shoulders and turns her back toward the mirror. "I didn't say it was a bad thing. Just … know that you matter to him, and not much ever has before. Also … you might consider a cocktail skirt instead."

Blair regards herself once more and ponders:

_11.) Carter Baizen's evil little sister appears to have just simultaneously given her her blessing and threatened her with certain death if she crushes her brother's heart. Also, cocktail skirt it is._

XOXO

_12.) She is hereby canceling vodka from the universe, and that is final._

Sure, gin martinis have led her to her fair share of mildly embarrassing situations, but only vodka is to blame for the fact that she's currently naked and dripping in the passenger seat of Carter's father's Range Rover, desperately trying to use her sample size lime seersucker cocktail skirt (embroidered with fucking _smiley whales_, for christ's sake, what _is_ this place?) as full body coverage while an equally naked Walker and four boys are smushed giggling furiously in the backseat, covering up with the swatches of madras and polo they managed to remember to pick up from the sand after this ill-advised impromptu skinny dipping session.

She gapes at Carter as his grin threatens to split his face alongside her in the driver's seat while the flashing red and blue lights play across his currently devilish features.

_13.) She absolutely hates Carter Baizen. For real._

"I absolutely hate you, Carter Baizen!" she announces, her jaw dropping as he laughs in response.

"Relax, Blair," he admonishes. "Do you really think I'd let anything happen to you?"

"Oh? You mean like getting me drunk, naked, and into freezing cold, shark-infested waters in the middle of the night and then arrested?!" she demands, her voice raising with each word as does his laughter.

"I am neither drunk nor naked," Carter points out, infuriating her further. "And no one is getting arrested. Chill."

"CHILL?!"

"License and registration?" A handsome police officer of maybe 23 appears at the window beside Carter, who smiles easily and hands over the registration but apologizes that he's left his license in a different pair of shorts. The officer nods imperceptibly, to Blair's horror. "And what's going on tonight?"

"Just a little swimming," Carter replies. "We didn't mean to disturb anyone."

"Excuse me!" Blair blurts out. "Hi. I'm Blair Waldorf. My father is Harold Waldorf, _Esquire_, and my stepfather is Cyrus Rose, _Esquire_. I mean, he mostly does entertainment law, but I would just like to say that if I am incarcerated it will surely not end well for the Nantucket Police Department. I mean, it is a free ocean, thank you. I mean, there was no sign or anything, was there? If there is, you really need to light it better, for when people go swimming … at night …"

She trails off as she realizes that Carter's tongue is literally in his cheek and his jaw is clenched painfully as he attempts not to laugh. From the backseat Walker's peal of laughter is silvery, and the police officer drops his gaze and clears his throat in a manner suspiciously like he's trying to cover up his own amusement.

"Just wanted to make sure everyone's got a seatbelt," he replies with attempted gruffness, and Walker immediately slides onto the lap of the nearest boy and fastens the belt around both of them.

"All set!"

"All set," Carter affirms, eyes twinkling.

"All set. No more swimming," the officer admonishes, and then he's gone.

The car is silent for 10 full seconds, and then Blair's face fairly catches fire as the explosive laughter threatens her eardrums.

"Harold Waldorf, _Esquire_…" Walker shrieks from behind her, as Carter leans over to kiss her cheek.

"Rules are different on Nantucket," he grins, and she shoves him away but she can't help but smile a little too.

_14.) All the rules seem to be different with Carter, and she likes it._

XOXO

"Please tell me we're not stealing a boat now, Carter," Blair moans an hour later as Carter tugs her down the crowded dock she recognizes as the one just beyond the slip where the ferry let them off, and he laughs.

"We're not stealing a boat," he promises. "This is your Nantucket sailing trip. You have to experience all of the Baizen boats!"

"Oh, that's really not necessary," Blair replies quickly, pleadingly, and he stops abruptly so that she crashes directly into him.

"No?" he asks, pouting a little as he wraps his arms around her waist and draws her to him. She's still damp and sticky from the ocean, and her clothes cling lightly to her body, her hair a tangled nest of salt and curls. He thinks he'd like to devour her, and he drops his mouth to hers. "I think you'll really like this one, though," he breathes, before he slips his tongue between her lips and runs it teasingly along her teeth before pulling back and regarding her questioningly.

"Fine," she fairly pants. "Where is the thing?"

He smiles like the sun again and releases one arm to gesture sweepingly toward the triple-masted yacht beside them.

She raises her eyebrows. "Now _this_ is more like it," she announces, and he laughs and helps her step aboard. "_Indiscretion_?" She reads the boat's name aloud. "Sound perfect."

"It's mine," he tells her, with not a little pride, and still a hint of bashfulness.

"_Yours_ yours?" she replies, impressed, and he nods.

"I like boats," he shrugs, and she nods, because it's no surprise that Carter Baizen would like boats like Nate Archibald does, and then christen them Chuck Bass-style names like _Indiscretion_.

"I like _you_," she counters, and he has just a moment to look surprised at the sudden admission before he finds her legs around his waist and her lips on his and her hands gloriously running over the back of his head and neck and shoulders.

As they stumble into the bedroom cabin and he's expertly peeling her wet clothes from her body and running his mouth along the bare flesh, she drops her head back against the bed, her breath coming more rapidly, and her eyes slowly adjust in the darkness.

He pauses when she's still for more than a moment, and she can feel heat spread across his cheek beneath her fingertips as he drops his head in vague embarrassment when her face lights up in a soft smile as she takes in the daffodils, covering every available surface as they have been all over the island all weekend.

"It _is_ Daffodil Weekend," he mutters, lamely, and she laughs and kisses him like he's told her he loves her.

_15.) She's pretty sure she might love Carter Baizen._


End file.
